If you're from Virginia, it's not surprising that its public universities are among the nation's top schools year after year. And this year proves no different: US News & World Report just released its rankings for 2007. Some highlights:

• The University of Virginia is once again No. 2 among 162 national public universities (a trend that has continued either in the No. 1 or 2 ranking for all 10 years that US News has ranked public schools in their own category). UVa ties with Michigan at No. 24 overall among 248 schools - public and private. New this year: Newsweek is calling Mr. Jefferson's University one of 25 "New Ivies" rivaling the historically elite league.


• The College of William and Mary comes in at No. 6 in the public category (consistently ranking sixth for several years now, despite being the smallest and poorest funded university in the top 10). And W&M continues to defy the odds with an overall ranking of No. 31 in US News, and by receiving No. 19 (the highest ranking of a Virginia school) in Washington Monthly's unusual rankings that look at contributions to society, such as community service, research, and social mobility.


• Virginia Tech takes No. 34 in public universities and No. 77 overall. But the big news for Tech this year is the high rankings for their engineering and business programs, which at both grad and undergrad levels, are received some of their highest rankings ever.


• It's also worth noting that James Madison University is enjoying its 13th straight year as the top public master's level university in the South, which is nothing to sneeze at for a school whose primary focus is undergraduate research.