US News best colleges 2025

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:William and Mary behing Virginia Tech.

This is what high school counselors have been saying for years.

No they haven't.

Not shocking VT is ranked higher when they play affirmative action with first gens

What school doesn't? At least they're transparent about it.
DP

Not on the level VA tech does. They want 40% of the student body to be FGLI. Seems middle class gets no financial aid as a result of that. Makes US news happy, not so much the average Virginian who can't afford 40K COA on a 100k income

Again: that is no longer part of the criteria they use for ranking. Move along.

Did you even read the methodology? They replaced first gen factors with Pell grant factors. Still weighted as heavily as last year. These factors only reflect social mobility, not educational experience for all. USN&WR remain irrelevant for most DCUM users whose kids are not in need of social mobility.

My kids could use some mobility.

+1
So could mine! I love how the PP deigns to speak for everyone.

Nope, I said MOST DCUM users aren’t focused on social mobility. DCUM has one of the wealthiest, most educated user bases out there. They’re looking for educational quality, not admission and performance of low income students. So these rankings are irrelevant to those users, yet people don’t read the methodology and treat it as some sort of holy grail.

If now USN, then what? What ranking would you consider to be a more legit measure of educational quality?

I don’t know why you need a ranking. If you must, look for one that focuses on what’s important to you. For me that would be size of classes, student quality, job or grad school placement within 6 months. Maybe you would care about the strength of the major. We focus on strong academics and a good fit.

Here you go. Just made you a list focused solely on academics. Used the NYT build your own rankings tool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Laughing at the rankings of the privates that DCUM parents whose kids go to private high schools drool over. Northeastern in the 50s, Tulane in the 70s ha ha. And Kenyon ranked 45th among liberal arts colleges. They’re all second tier at best, yet these parents insist they’re the next Harvard!

People choosing Northeastern don't believe in a magazine ranking like Bible like you.

Ha ha struck a nerve eh? You don’t believe the rankings matter, yet here you are lol.

Some people are obsessed with the ranking, and believe in it like Bible.
They probably choose a school solely by the numbers.

Our family found these rankings pretty useful.
So we used them for an initial screening and a rough initial list of colleges.
It's good for that purpose.

People who choose Northeastern can easily walk into a bunch of schools ranked higher, but most normal people don't choose schools by that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Laughing at the rankings of the privates that DCUM parents whose kids go to private high schools drool over. Northeastern in the 50s, Tulane in the 70s ha ha. And Kenyon ranked 45th among liberal arts colleges. They’re all second tier at best, yet these parents insist they’re the next Harvard!

People choosing Northeastern don't believe in a magazine ranking like Bible like you.

Ha ha struck a nerve eh? You don’t believe the rankings matter, yet here you are lol.

Some people are obsessed with the ranking, and believe in it like Bible.
They probably choose a school solely by the numbers.

Our family found these rankings pretty useful.
So we used them for an initial screening and a rough initial list of colleges.
It's good for that purpose.

People who choose Northeastern can easily walk into a bunch of schools ranked higher, but most normal people don't choose schools by that.

DP why r u prickly about Northeastern?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:William and Mary behing Virginia Tech.

This is what high school counselors have been saying for years.

No they haven't.

Not shocking VT is ranked higher when they play affirmative action with first gens

What school doesn't? At least they're transparent about it.
DP

Not on the level VA tech does. They want 40% of the student body to be FGLI. Seems middle class gets no financial aid as a result of that. Makes US news happy, not so much the average Virginian who can't afford 40K COA on a 100k income

Again: that is no longer part of the criteria they use for ranking. Move along.

Did you even read the methodology? They replaced first gen factors with Pell grant factors. Still weighted as heavily as last year. These factors only reflect social mobility, not educational experience for all. USN&WR remain irrelevant for most DCUM users whose kids are not in need of social mobility.

My kids could use some mobility.

+1
So could mine! I love how the PP deigns to speak for everyone.

Nope, I said MOST DCUM users aren’t focused on social mobility. DCUM has one of the wealthiest, most educated user bases out there. They’re looking for educational quality, not admission and performance of low income students. So these rankings are irrelevant to those users, yet people don’t read the methodology and treat it as some sort of holy grail.

If now USN, then what? What ranking would you consider to be a more legit measure of educational quality?

That should be you.
All those rankings are reference points for you to come up with your actual ranking.
Someone needs to tell you this??

DP please stfu.

The actual ranking would then reflect people's choices. The aggregated results of acceptance rate, yield, and student stats would determine the ultimate ranking. This is based on how real people have ranked the schools.

A magazine might rank a school higher with a 90% acceptance rate, 9% yield, and 1200 SAT kids. However, in reality people would rank it lower and not choose it. This would ultimately reflect the true ranking. Consumers have the real power to rank the schools.

No. Consumer choice does not equal quality of school.

Consumers collectively also decide the definition of 'quality of school', then they make their ultimate choices which is the real ranking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Laughing at the rankings of the privates that DCUM parents whose kids go to private high schools drool over. Northeastern in the 50s, Tulane in the 70s ha ha. And Kenyon ranked 45th among liberal arts colleges. They’re all second tier at best, yet these parents insist they’re the next Harvard!

People choosing Northeastern don't believe in a magazine ranking like Bible like you.

Ha ha struck a nerve eh? You don’t believe the rankings matter, yet here you are lol.

Some people are obsessed with the ranking, and believe in it like Bible.
They probably choose a school solely by the numbers.

Our family found these rankings pretty useful.
So we used them for an initial screening and a rough initial list of colleges.
It's good for that purpose.

People who choose Northeastern can easily walk into a bunch of schools ranked higher, but most normal people don't choose schools by that.

DP why r u prickly about Northeastern?

It was a reply to a post that had specific interest in Northeastern.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:William and Mary behing Virginia Tech.

This is what high school counselors have been saying for years.

No they haven't.

Not shocking VT is ranked higher when they play affirmative action with first gens

What school doesn't? At least they're transparent about it.
DP

Not on the level VA tech does. They want 40% of the student body to be FGLI. Seems middle class gets no financial aid as a result of that. Makes US news happy, not so much the average Virginian who can't afford 40K COA on a 100k income

Again: that is no longer part of the criteria they use for ranking. Move along.

Did you even read the methodology? They replaced first gen factors with Pell grant factors. Still weighted as heavily as last year. These factors only reflect social mobility, not educational experience for all. USN&WR remain irrelevant for most DCUM users whose kids are not in need of social mobility.

My kids could use some mobility.

+1
So could mine! I love how the PP deigns to speak for everyone.

Nope, I said MOST DCUM users aren’t focused on social mobility. DCUM has one of the wealthiest, most educated user bases out there. They’re looking for educational quality, not admission and performance of low income students. So these rankings are irrelevant to those users, yet people don’t read the methodology and treat it as some sort of holy grail.

If now USN, then what? What ranking would you consider to be a more legit measure of educational quality?

That should be you.
All those rankings are reference points for you to come up with your actual ranking.
Someone needs to tell you this??

DP please stfu.

The actual ranking would then reflect people's choices. The aggregated results of acceptance rate, yield, and student stats would determine the ultimate ranking. This is based on how real people have ranked the schools.

A magazine might rank a school higher with a 90% acceptance rate, 9% yield, and 1200 SAT kids. However, in reality people would rank it lower and not choose it. This would ultimately reflect the true ranking. Consumers have the real power to rank the schools.

No. Consumer choice does not equal quality of school.

Consumers collectively also decide the definition of 'quality of school', then they make their ultimate choices which is the real ranking.

Hahaha get your head out of the clouds. There are more students in the entire UC system than there are in the rest of the T20. CHOSEN largely bc of in state price. That does not make UC Irvine better than ivies or Northwestern.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Laughing at the rankings of the privates that DCUM parents whose kids go to private high schools drool over. Northeastern in the 50s, Tulane in the 70s ha ha. And Kenyon ranked 45th among liberal arts colleges. They’re all second tier at best, yet these parents insist they’re the next Harvard!

People choosing Northeastern don't believe in a magazine ranking like Bible like you.

Ha ha struck a nerve eh? You don’t believe the rankings matter, yet here you are lol.

Some people are obsessed with the ranking, and believe in it like Bible.
They probably choose a school solely by the numbers.

Our family found these rankings pretty useful.
So we used them for an initial screening and a rough initial list of colleges.
It's good for that purpose.

People who choose Northeastern can easily walk into a bunch of schools ranked higher, but most normal people don't choose schools by that.

DP why r u prickly about Northeastern?

It was a reply to a post that had specific interest in Northeastern.

Whatever just relax at Northeastern. Be secure in your choice

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Princeton
2. MIT
3. Harvard
4. Stanford
5. Yale
6. Caltech, Duke, JHU, Northwestern
10. UPenn
11. Cornell, UChicago
13. Brown, Columbia
15. Dartmouth, UCLA
17. Berkeley
18. Rice, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt
21. CMU, UMich, WashU
24. Emory, Georgetown, UVA
27. UNC, USC
29. UCSD
30. NYU UF UT Austin
33. Georgia Tech, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UIUC
37. BC, Tufts
39. UCSB, UW Madison

Not a terrible ranking, though UCLA seems high.

#1 Public 8 or 9 years in a row, more applications than any other school (public or private), and top rankings in a blizzard of key areas of evaluation.

#15 seems reasonable.

I guess in my head I'm always subconsciously ranking by student quality.

Which means Berkeley should be the highest public by a mile. And Hopkins is not top 10, and falls below Berkeley. And MIT is first. And Cornell goes back to being the bottom ivy, around 15-16 overall.

what? the average berkeley student is weak compared to hopkins and cornell

The average Hopkins student would get eaten alive at Berkeley.

maybe by homeless. hopkins academics are no joke. but then again, that’s why so many from california choose to leave berkeley to out of state including hopkins

What are you talking about? Berkeley is next to THE tech hotspot. What hopkins kid is eager to stay in Baltimore?

give it a rest. there are more hopkins alum per capita in fang than berkeley.

Berkeley also has how many times the amount of academic programs and offerings as hopkins...?

how many of your students graduate in 4 years? what’s your average class size?
average salary?

all higher at hopkins. nice job trying to do higher perception by association however. no one bats their eye when hopkins is top 10 but berkeley this high is off

dp.. I don't think it's a fair comparison. JHU is tiny and private; Cal is huge and a public.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm generally confused. If SMU is ranked in the 90's and UC Merced is practically a top 50 school, why is SMU's admission rate so much lower?

You are confused. Admission Rate has nothing to do with the rankings.

or quality, for that matter. A lot of people apply to certain schools purely based on name recognition, of which , UC Merced has none outside of CA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:William and Mary behing Virginia Tech.

This is what high school counselors have been saying for years.

No they haven't.

Not shocking VT is ranked higher when they play affirmative action with first gens

What school doesn't? At least they're transparent about it.
DP

Not on the level VA tech does. They want 40% of the student body to be FGLI. Seems middle class gets no financial aid as a result of that. Makes US news happy, not so much the average Virginian who can't afford 40K COA on a 100k income

Again: that is no longer part of the criteria they use for ranking. Move along.

Did you even read the methodology? They replaced first gen factors with Pell grant factors. Still weighted as heavily as last year. These factors only reflect social mobility, not educational experience for all. USN&WR remain irrelevant for most DCUM users whose kids are not in need of social mobility.

My kids could use some mobility.

+1
So could mine! I love how the PP deigns to speak for everyone.

Nope, I said MOST DCUM users aren’t focused on social mobility. DCUM has one of the wealthiest, most educated user bases out there. They’re looking for educational quality, not admission and performance of low income students. So these rankings are irrelevant to those users, yet people don’t read the methodology and treat it as some sort of holy grail.

If now USN, then what? What ranking would you consider to be a more legit measure of educational quality?

That should be you.
All those rankings are reference points for you to come up with your actual ranking.
Someone needs to tell you this??

DP please stfu.

The actual ranking would then reflect people's choices. The aggregated results of acceptance rate, yield, and student stats would determine the ultimate ranking. This is based on how real people have ranked the schools.

A magazine might rank a school higher with a 90% acceptance rate, 9% yield, and 1200 SAT kids. However, in reality people would rank it lower and not choose it. This would ultimately reflect the true ranking. Consumers have the real power to rank the schools.

No. Consumer choice does not equal quality of school.

Consumers collectively also decide the definition of 'quality of school', then they make their ultimate choices which is the real ranking.

Hahaha get your head out of the clouds. There are more students in the entire UC system than there are in the rest of the T20. CHOSEN largely bc of in state price. That does not make UC Irvine better than ivies or Northwestern.

What's the yield and student stats for UC Irvine.
Definitely way lower than Ivies.
That means high quality candidates didn't choose it that makes it lower ranking.
Cost/value is part of the choice but school size is not part of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:William and Mary behing Virginia Tech.

This is what high school counselors have been saying for years.

No they haven't.

Not shocking VT is ranked higher when they play affirmative action with first gens

What school doesn't? At least they're transparent about it.
DP

Not on the level VA tech does. They want 40% of the student body to be FGLI. Seems middle class gets no financial aid as a result of that. Makes US news happy, not so much the average Virginian who can't afford 40K COA on a 100k income

Again: that is no longer part of the criteria they use for ranking. Move along.

Did you even read the methodology? They replaced first gen factors with Pell grant factors. Still weighted as heavily as last year. These factors only reflect social mobility, not educational experience for all. USN&WR remain irrelevant for most DCUM users whose kids are not in need of social mobility.

My kids could use some mobility.

+1
So could mine! I love how the PP deigns to speak for everyone.

Nope, I said MOST DCUM users aren’t focused on social mobility. DCUM has one of the wealthiest, most educated user bases out there. They’re looking for educational quality, not admission and performance of low income students. So these rankings are irrelevant to those users, yet people don’t read the methodology and treat it as some sort of holy grail.

If now USN, then what? What ranking would you consider to be a more legit measure of educational quality?

That should be you.
All those rankings are reference points for you to come up with your actual ranking.
Someone needs to tell you this??

DP please stfu.

The actual ranking would then reflect people's choices. The aggregated results of acceptance rate, yield, and student stats would determine the ultimate ranking. This is based on how real people have ranked the schools.

A magazine might rank a school higher with a 90% acceptance rate, 9% yield, and 1200 SAT kids. However, in reality people would rank it lower and not choose it. This would ultimately reflect the true ranking. Consumers have the real power to rank the schools.

No. Consumer choice does not equal quality of school.

Consumers collectively also decide the definition of 'quality of school', then they make their ultimate choices which is the real ranking.

I think what people were referencing earlier here was "quality of academics" which should be #1 in terms of chosing a school in my opinion. This can easily be measured using data such as graduation rates, test scores, class sizes, etc.

I really like the NYT tool (used upthread) to create your own ranking based on factors important to you, such as academic quality, athletics, diversity, price, and outcomes. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/opinion/build-your-own-college-rankings.html

[Anonymous]

What was northeastenms ranking and what is it now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Laughing at the rankings of the privates that DCUM parents whose kids go to private high schools drool over. Northeastern in the 50s, Tulane in the 70s ha ha. And Kenyon ranked 45th among liberal arts colleges. They’re all second tier at best, yet these parents insist they’re the next Harvard!

People choosing Northeastern don't believe in a magazine ranking like Bible like you.

Ha ha struck a nerve eh? You don’t believe the rankings matter, yet here you are lol.

Some people are obsessed with the ranking, and believe in it like Bible.
They probably choose a school solely by the numbers.

Our family found these rankings pretty useful.
So we used them for an initial screening and a rough initial list of colleges.
It's good for that purpose.

People who choose Northeastern can easily walk into a bunch of schools ranked higher, but most normal people don't choose schools by that.

DP why r u prickly about Northeastern?

It was a reply to a post that had specific interest in Northeastern.

Whatever just relax at Northeastern. Be secure in your choice

Next time, you can click 'Click to show earlier quotes' to see what it was about before replying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:William and Mary behing Virginia Tech.

This is what high school counselors have been saying for years.

No they haven't.

Not shocking VT is ranked higher when they play affirmative action with first gens

+1. Also, VT practices yield protection.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:William and Mary behing Virginia Tech.

This is what high school counselors have been saying for years.

No they haven't.

Not shocking VT is ranked higher when they play affirmative action with first gens

+1. Also, VT practices yield protection.

This has been repeatedly debunked on DCUM. From VT’s own website:

“Virginia Tech does not participate in yield protection.”

https://www.vt.edu/admissions/undergraduate/counselor-corner.html