Princeton University has ranked number one among American colleges in the 2020 U.S. News Best Colleges list.
The 35th edition of the best colleges rankings was unveiled on Monday with at least 50 different types of numerical lists to make choosing colleges easier for students.
The website ranked schools on a zero to 100 scale and used various factors, including graduation rate, retention rate, social mobility, faculty resources, expert opinion, financial resources, student excellence, and alumni giving.
Princeton received an overall score of 100. The school also topped best undergraduate teaching and best values school list.
Following Princeton, Harvard University ranked second, while Columbia University, MIT and Yale University tied for the third spot.
“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,” said Kim Castro, editor and chief content officer of U.S. News.
“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.”
Among the liberal arts colleges that emphasize undergraduate education, Williams College ranked top followed by Amherst College, Swarthmore College, and Wellesley College.
This year, the website included a new ranking of top performers on social mobility that best serve underrepresented students. The University of California – Riverside grabbed a top spot among all the national universities, while University of California – Santa Cruz and the University of California – Irvine ranked second and third respectively.
The website used Pell Grants as a proxy measure and enrollment, graduation rates of low-income students to rank the colleges.
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