U.S. News just released this year’s edition of their rankings for national universities and liberal arts colleges, and Columbia University is still ranked 4th, after jumping to the position in 2010 from 8. This year, Columbia also shares its spot with both U Chicago and Stanford.
Barnard also maintained its ranking from last year, sharing #32 with Bucknell University. Though more selective than other all-women colleges, it falls behind Wellesley, Smith, Scripps, and Bryn Mawr in U.S. News & World Report’s questionable methodology.
Here’s the full list of the top 20 national universities:
1. Princeton
2. Harvard
3. Yale
4. Columbia, Stanford, UChicago
7. MIT
8. Duke, UPenn
10. Cal Tech
11. Dartmouth
12. Johns Hopkins
13. Northwestern
14. WashU
15. Cornell
16. Brown, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt
19. Rice
20. UC Berkeley
4 via Shutterstock
30 Comments
@TRUFTH IF YE AIN’T FIRST UR LAST!!!
@Anonymous Given all of the attention finally focused on the number of sex assault and harass complaints filed against schools in USA, namely Columbia University, in 2014, it’s surprising that CU was able to maintain it’s Top-5 ranking. Though it’s hard to tell if it is really #4 or #6 ;-)
These rankings should consider number of sex assault and harassment complaints filed against the schools’ administrations especially when some of those complaints, at least at Bollinger’s Columbia University, include complaints filed against professors/heads of institutes within the university who are capable of giving out grades, grants, recommendations, sign offs on federal loans, etc., according to who may/may not give into their harassment. A few students even recorded the professor/head of institute making that quid pro quo clear; that sort of dynamic should be taken into consideration when determining rankings, right?
@just saying CU was NOT named in the DOJ’s list of title IX violators. U of Chicago was.
@once again we've fallen short in US News and World Report
@Anonymous Of course the methodology is questionable. They’ve got a top 3 that’s predetermined, and they fiddle to make the top ten what they want, so strange stuff happens down below.
Stanford had the lowest admissions rate, and gained a ludicrous amount of donations? Guess that’s not as important anymore!
Remember how Princeton lost Cornell West and Paul Krugman, the only two profs there I could name? Well, it’s a very complex process, blahdeblahdeblah, still the best.
Total joke, but it’s one we’re in on, so hoorah, I guess.
@Anonymous Princeton now has a higher admit rate than like the top 8 schools. I am not sure why Princeton is still in the top five. Stanford has a low admit rate, but its SAT scores are not in the top ten.
@Anonymous its SAT scores are due to its athletes…
@Big Tom 4th… but #1 in rape ;)
@Anonymous Per USNews “Columbia’s three undergraduate schools are used in the calculation”
@harvard must be so pissed :P
@Anonymous The methodology is garbage. I know because I go to this school and it sucks.
@funny HAHAHAHA
@Anonymous We would be one if GS were not included in our stats. No other school counts their continuing ed students.
@not GS I know, don’t feed the troll, but really? Do you know what continuing ed is? Not GS.
@GS I don’t think GS is included in the Stats.
@Anonymous GS is not included in the stats – only CC and SEAS.
GS students might have lower stats and not as academically qualified as the real undergrads, but many of them have had hard lives and are it’s commendable for them to try and make it up in the world a little later.
@Anonymous lol “real” undergrads
@Troll harder next time GS is not included in the stats. Plus, they have the highest graduating GPA of the 4 schools, so the idea that they’re somehow less intelligent is ridiculous.
@Alum GS is a liberal arts college like CC, but with older students whose educations were interrupted. Continuing ed is something very different, and CU has a separate school for it.
@also why not also cover this metric of school quality: economic diversity—a category in which columbia and barnard both perform really well in
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/09/upshot/09up-college-access-index.html?abt=0002&abg=0
@kkds because economic diversity has nothing to do with how good a school is and every school has some poor people
@NSOP Who cares? At least this means we’ll have less obnoxious kids applying just for rank. #roarlionroar
@Anonymous I won’t steal Arsene Wenger’s thunder by pointing out that 4th place is pretty much a trophy itself
Does this mean we have to face off against a Turkish university to qualify for the university champions league?
@Anonymous suck it besiktas!!!
@Anonymous Stanford’s overrated. When you subtract the gratuitous number of PAC- 12 athletes in their classes, what’s even left?
Ivy League is Ivy League.
@lol you must be from the east coast
-every sad west coast stanford reject who had to go to an ivy instead
@Anonymous Two words: Silicon Valley
@Anonymous Two words. Wall Street
@Lol wut Vanderbilt…Notre dame?? U Chicago 4th? K bye
@Anonymous UChicago has been trailing just behind Columbia for a couple years now. not surprising.