U.S. News Peer Assessment Scores - 2025 Best Colleges

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Traditionally it’s been Berkeley on top and then Michigan.

Berkeley makes sense. Very well respected within the grad school community.

+1. Some of their departments are really strong.

Really all. In terms of research, Berkeley hires decorated scholars in any field imaginable. Maybe not the best for undergraduates, but Berkeley grad is the start to an impactful career

Berkelry is very strong in humanities and STEM, their History department is #1. There are very few departments where they are not top 5 or 10 in the country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some have admitted to rating their peers lower on purposes.

THIS

[Anonymous]

What a stupid factor. Subjective opinions based on nothing or outdated stereotypes account for 20% of USNWR rankings. And of the 4,665 academics who were sent questionnaires, only 30.7% responded!

Combine this useless factor with the 11% weighted for Pell Grant things and I continue to be amazed anyone pays any attention to USNWR rankings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What a stupid factor. Subjective opinions based on nothing or outdated stereotypes account for 20% of USNWR rankings. And of the 4,665 academics who were sent questionnaires, only 30.7% responded!

Combine this useless factor with the 11% weighted for Pell Grant things and I continue to be amazed anyone pays any attention to USNWR rankings.

That's over 1400 respondents. And honestly the most important part of the ranking. It is how we define prestige.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some have admitted to rating their peers lower on purposes.

That’s interesting. Mind sharing a source?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some have admitted to rating their peers lower on purposes.

That’s interesting. Mind sharing a source?

In that famous interview with the Northeastern president who took the school from a regional commuter school to knocking on the door of the T50, this is one of the strategies he describes.

[Anonymous]

This peer assessment score does have it's flaws and inherent biases. But as another poster stated, in some respects, it's probably a semi-decent proxy for "prestige" -- at least prestige or overall academic reputation as assessed by a bunch of tweet coat wearing Ivory Tower types who cut their teeth in academia 3-4 decades ago!

Having said that, can I get the latest peer assessment scores for Georgetown, U of Notre Dame, U of Michigan, and UCLA? "Asking for a friend!"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What a stupid factor. Subjective opinions based on nothing or outdated stereotypes account for 20% of USNWR rankings. And of the 4,665 academics who were sent questionnaires, only 30.7% responded!

Combine this useless factor with the 11% weighted for Pell Grant things and I continue to be amazed anyone pays any attention to USNWR rankings.

That's over 1400 respondents. And honestly the most important part of the ranking. It is how we define prestige.

You clearly do not understand statistics. A 30.7% response rate would be considered by almost everyone to be an invalid and not representative survey. And this has the highest weight in the news ranking of 20%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What a stupid factor. Subjective opinions based on nothing or outdated stereotypes account for 20% of USNWR rankings. And of the 4,665 academics who were sent questionnaires, only 30.7% responded!

Combine this useless factor with the 11% weighted for Pell Grant things and I continue to be amazed anyone pays any attention to USNWR rankings.

x 100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What a stupid factor. Subjective opinions based on nothing or outdated stereotypes account for 20% of USNWR rankings. And of the 4,665 academics who were sent questionnaires, only 30.7% responded!

Combine this useless factor with the 11% weighted for Pell Grant things and I continue to be amazed anyone pays any attention to USNWR rankings.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What a stupid factor. Subjective opinions based on nothing or outdated stereotypes account for 20% of USNWR rankings. And of the 4,665 academics who were sent questionnaires, only 30.7% responded!

Combine this useless factor with the 11% weighted for Pell Grant things and I continue to be amazed anyone pays any attention to USNWR rankings.

That's over 1400 respondents. And honestly the most important part of the ranking. It is how we define prestige.

You clearly do not understand statistics. A 30.7% response rate would be considered by almost everyone to be an invalid and not representative survey. And this has the highest weight in the news ranking of 20%.

I’d rather know what 31% of top officials at colleges think than 0%. But as far as being representative, it could be far higher than that if only looking at the top 200. Not that it needs to be; 31% is actually great for a survey.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What a stupid factor. Subjective opinions based on nothing or outdated stereotypes account for 20% of USNWR rankings. And of the 4,665 academics who were sent questionnaires, only 30.7% responded!

Combine this useless factor with the 11% weighted for Pell Grant things and I continue to be amazed anyone pays any attention to USNWR rankings.

That's over 1400 respondents. And honestly the most important part of the ranking. It is how we define prestige.

You clearly do not understand statistics. A 30.7% response rate would be considered by almost everyone to be an invalid and not representative survey. And this has the highest weight in the news ranking of 20%.

I’d rather know what 31% of top officials at colleges think than 0%. But as far as being representative, it could be far higher than that if only looking at the top 200. Not that it needs to be; 31% is actually great for a survey.

I hope that people notice such details with a critical mindset when they see this type of ranking.
The problem is that these subjective opinions from a small group can influence the decisions of tens of thousands of applicants who have no idea about the hidden context.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This peer assessment score does have it's flaws and inherent biases. But as another poster stated, in some respects, it's probably a semi-decent proxy for "prestige" -- at least prestige or overall academic reputation as assessed by a bunch of tweet coat wearing Ivory Tower types who cut their teeth in academia 3-4 decades ago!

Having said that, can I get the latest peer assessment scores for Georgetown, U of Notre Dame, U of Michigan, and UCLA? "Asking for a friend!"

Definitely a proxy for overall academic reputation. Since that’s based more on the academic output of faculty and quality of grad students the school produces, I’m not sure how relevant it is for undergrads so I would give it a lower weight. But it’s as valid as half of the other metrics in there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, not sure this will be of much help to the original poster, but 2022 was the last time I'd picked up a copy of the magazine at the bookstore.

These were the Peer Assessment scores for the 2022 Best Colleges edition (published in Sept. 2021). I know it's not the current one, but it might give OP a general sense as these peer assessment scores probably don't change all that much year over year.

2022 Rank....College Name..........2022 Peer Assess. Score (Max = 5.0)
1....................Princeton University......4.8
2....................Columbia University......4.7
2....................Harvard University........4.9
2....................Mass. Inst. of Tech........4.9
5....................Yale University..............4.8
6....................Stanford University........4.9
6....................University of Chicago.....4.6
8....................Univ. of Pennsylvania.....4.6
9....................Calif. Inst. of Tech.........4.6
9....................Duke University............4.5
9....................Johns Hopkins Univ.......4.7
9....................Northwestern Univ........4.4
13..................Dartmouth College........4.4
14..................Brown University...........4.5
14..................Vanderbilt University......4.3
14..................Washington Univ. (St.L)..4.2
17..................Cornell University...........4.6
17..................Rice University...............4.1
19..................Univ. of Notre Dame.......4.2
20..................Univ. of Calif. - LA..........4.4
21..................Emory University............4.2
22..................Univ. of Calif. - Berkeley..4.7
23..................Georgetown University....4.2
23..................University of Michigan.....4.5
25..................Carnegie Mellon Univ.......4.3
25..................University of Virginia.......4.3
27..................Univ. of Southern Calif.....3.9
28..................Wake Forest University.....3.7

These peer assessment scores are not in descending order

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

These peer assessment scores are not in descending order

I think John McEnroe shouted it best: "You CANNOT be serious."