TOP 20 American Universities by U.S. News rankings

by Pritika Ghura

Harvard has raced ahead of Ivy League rival Princeton in the latest edition of the influential U.S. News & World Report university rankings which were released recently.

USA's oldest and most elite university, Harvard, has topped the list two of the last three years. Last year, the two prestigious institutes shared the top ranking.

Other institutes ranked in top five rankings are- Yale at No. 3, followed by Columbia and Stanford and Penn tied at No. 5.

Taking into account factors such as SAT cores, graduation, retention rates, alumni giving and peer reputation, selectivity and high-school guidance counsellors' opinions, these rankings have been prepared with an objective to be a guide for students.

Another interesting thing to note is that 'graduation rate performance' was given greater weightage, accounting for 7.5 per cent of the final score for national universities and liberal arts colleges, up from 5 per cent last year. The variable is the difference between a school's actual graduation rate and one predicted by U.S. News based on test scores and schools' resources.

One of the most popular college rankings, the U.S. News & World Report list is both credited for helping students sort through a dizzying college selection process and criticized by those who say it's too arbitrary and pressures colleges to boost scores at the expense of improving teaching.

TOP 20 NATIONAL UNIVERSITIES RANKINGS

1) Harvard University
2) Princeton University
3) Yale University
4) Columbia University
5) Stanford University and University of Pennsylvania
6) California Institute of Technology
7) Massachusetts Institute of Technology
8) Dartmouth College
9) Duke University
10) University of Chicago
11) Northwestern University
12) Johns Hopkins University
13) Washington University in St. Louis
14) Brown University
15) Cornell University
16) Rice University
17) Vanderbilt University
18) University of Notre Dame
19) Emory University
20) Georgetown University