Princeton University took the No. 1 title as the top national university — for the ninth consecutive year — in an annual list compiled by U.S. News & World Report.
The private New Jersey school wasn’t the only Ivy League institution to occupy a top slot on the list unveiled Monday — Harvard University came in second place.
The Big Apple’s own Ivy, Columbia University, as well as Connecticut’s Yale University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — which is not an Ivy but known for its selectivity — tied for third.
Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. took the top spot among national liberal arts colleges for the 17th year in a row, followed by Amherst College, also in the Bay State. Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and Wellesley College in Massachusetts tied for third.
The University of California—Los Angeles occupies the No. 1 spot as the top public university, followed by the University of California–Berkeley and the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor.
Three California state schools — Riverside, Santa Cruz and Irvine — took the first second and third spots, respectively, for social mobility — a new ranking that “evaluates which schools best serve underrepresented students.”
Elon University in North Carolina was ranked No. 1 for its study abroad program, Agnes Scott College in Georgia for its first-year experience and Northeastern University in Massachusetts for its co-ops and internships.
The latest compilation is the 35th annual list by U.S. News and World Report, which ranked 1,400 colleges and universities based on their graduation rates, retention rates, social mobility and outcomes.
“For more than three decades, we’ve collected and analyzed data on thousands of colleges and universities across the country and helped put schools on the map,” Kim Castro, editor and chief content officer of U.S. News, said in a statement. “We’ve found the best institutions to be ones committed to academically and financially supporting their students through graduation. They draw in high-quality professors and set students up for postgraduate success.”
