As with the Forbes list, the WSJ includes LACs in the overall rankings.
Knowing the link will not provide access to the entire article for most people, I’ll include the top rankings here. WSJ includes several metrics with each school. I will include only one, and only at every 10 spots of the ranking to provide an idea of how the Overall Score tracks with the rankings.
1 Harvard … Overall Score 94.1
2 Stanford
3 MIT
4 Yale
5 Duke
6 Brown
7 Cal Tech
8 Princeton
9 John Hopkins
9 Northwestern
Other Points of Possible Interest
101 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute … Overall Score 66.7
150 Wooster … Overall Score 61.7
200 Bradley … Overall Score 58
251 Rutgers … Overall Score 55.6
301 U of St Thomas (MN) … Overall Score 53.2
356 Xavier … Overall Score 51.3
401-500 U of Alabama - Tuscaloosa … Overall Score 46.5-49.8
401-500 Campbell University - Buies Creek NC … Overall Score 46.5-49.8
401-500 San Francisco State U … Overall Score 46.5-49.8
401-500 Tuskegee University … Overall Score 46.5-49.8
In addition to the Overall Score, the other metrics are Outcomes Rank, Resources Rank, Engagement Rank, and Environment Rank.
One thing I found interesting in the rankings of 400+ was which of those schools had Outcomes Ranks far above their overall Rank. For instance, here are some schools that seem to have far better outcomes than their overall Rank would indicate.
Rank… School … Outcomes Rank
400+ Cal State East Bay 171
400+ Hastings College (NE) 254
400+ Lebanon Valley (.PA) 206
400+ Shenandoah U (VA) 190
400+ Tuskegee U (AL) 223
400+ Western Washington U 263
Is there a comparison chart where you can see rank of a college on all ranking lists on a given year or during last 10 years? As ranking criterion vary in many ways, being on one list once in last 20 years may not worth as much as making top 20 on every list for last 5 years or more.
Which schools are consistently making every top 20 list? My guess is Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, MIT, Johns Hopkins get a spot on every top 20 list every year. Who else? Duke? Chicago? Rice? Amherst? What other worthy of their salt lists are there? US News, Niche?
Alabama at 401-500 ranks with Texas Tech and Univ of North Texas. Alabama attracts some top students with big scholarships. Resources and environment rank >400. Is there a big dichotomy between the top students and the rest of the students?
Rice
'54. Florida
'60. UT-Austin
'79. TX A&M
'94. SMU
'106. Trinity U
'154. TCU
'170. Baylor
'244. Oklahoma
'278. Ole Miss
'323. Houston, UT-Dallas
'392. Arkansas
Texas and the Southwest don’t do particularly well. I need to look into how engagement and environment are determined. U of Houston is #34 in environment while Florida and Purdue are 236 and 266 respectively. Other than UH and UT-Dallas, Rice has the best environment rating of the above group at 105.
Forbes includes more of a cost analysis including debt and return on investment. The lower tuition state schools (especially UCs) tend to do better in Forbes ranking. Forbes Criteria
WSJ states their criteria as " The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings are based on 15 key indicators that assess colleges in four areas: Outcomes, Resources, Engagement and Environment. Outcomes accounts for 40% of the weighting and measures things like the salary graduates earn and the debt burden they accrue. Resources, with a 30% weighting, is mainly a proxy for the spending schools put into instruction and student services. Engagement, drawn mostly from a student survey and with a 20% weight, examines views on things like teaching and interactions with faculty and other students. Environment, at 10%, assesses the diversity of the university community.
Interesting question. Assuming such a gap exists does it result in grade inflation for those “top” students who are surrounded by lesser achievers? Could this serve as a path to top grad schools or career opportunities as easier to stand out?
With an 80%+ acceptance rate and an act range in the mid 20s should create an opportunity to outperform for a top student.
My DS explored UA including doing their Summer on Campus program (2 classes). After taking the classes and talking to some department advisers, we came to the conclusion that there is a part of the population at the very top that is different. Note, the population is smaller than the Honors College. One advisor said that 10% of the population is very good. He said that with my DS’s AP credits, he wouldn’t have much interaction with the other 90% because he would be quickly in senior/grad level classes where the average student is more engaged.
Some students can thrive in that environment and some will not. My DS doesn’t like the attention of being the top student. UA became a no for him when one of the professors called him out by saying the top score on the test was done by a HS Junior.