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A new ranking of American colleges by Times Higher Education and The Wall Street Journal reveals the top universities in the US.
New US College Rankings reveal a list of the best schools in America, based on unique criteria for measuring excellence.
More than 1,000 American universities are included in the round-up of the best colleges in the United States.
College scores are calculated over four key areas: resources, engagement, student outcomes and the college environment.
The ranking does not award points for selectivity in admissions, focusing instead on the learning gains that students receive once they enter university, measured using indicators such as graduation rate, graduate salaries, loan repayment rates, student engagement and interaction between students and staff.
Based on these measures, the very top universities are all private, not-for-profit institutions, many based in California, New York or Massachusetts.
US College Rankings methodology: designed for students
US universities in the World University Rankings 2016-2017
Prestigious schools such as Stanford, MIT, Columbia and UPenn take the top spots, but the usual suspects aren’t all where we might expect them to place.
CalTech only just achieves a spot in the top 10, while the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill all make it into the top 30 – the only public institutions to do so.
Most of the top 10 universities have undergraduate populations of significantly fewer than 10,000 students. University of Pennsylvania are the only exceptions, and both have about 10 per cent international students.
The WSJ/THE College Rankings were published by The Wall Street Journal in September 2016. Full results can be found here or scroll down for the top 100.
Editor’s note: The information on this page was correct at the time of publication. Since then, Times Higher Education has reissued the US College Rankings. For the most up-to-date 2017 US College Rankings results, always use the overall league table. Click here for the full up to date results of the US College Rankings
Carly Minsky
Kalpesh Kapadia
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