2015 Niche Best Colleges Ranking
Source: https://colleges.niche.com/rankings/best-overall/
TOSU #35 in the nation! Go Bucks!! 
Interesting. Nothing surprising about the top 4âŠtheyâre the usual suspects. Congrats to your Ohio State.
I liked Niche better when it allowed users to change the weightings of subjective variables like âCampus Housingâ and âParkingâ and create their own rankings, before it commercialized its site with predictable metrics like â% of faculty members in National Academiesâ and â% of National Merit Scholars in the freshman class.â
Pacific Union College was at the top of my ranking, and only one of Stanford, MIT, Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Pomona, Wesleyan, and the Ivy League universities was among the top five schools.
It seems that rankings nowadays are just HYPSM at the very top, then Penn, Columbia, Chicago, Brown, Duke (maybe mixed in with strong publics like UMich, UVA, Berk) in the next category.
Thank You, gravitas!! I enjoy the fact that tOSU is ranked behind only Chicago, Northwestern, Michigan and Wisconsin in the B1G. Go Bucks!! 
How about Cappex ranking list? http://blog.â â â â â â â â â â /blog/college-ranking-lists/top-40-colleges-with-highest-average-sat-scores/
The methodology for the Niche rankings requires a minimum of 1000 students, which automatically omits Caltech and Harvey Mudd College (No. 1 and 6 in the Cappex list) from their rankings. Another reason for not relying exclusively on any one ranking system.
I know test score is not everything for college but something to tellâŠI am not disagree with this title bright kids thoughâŠhttp://www.forbes.com/sites/schifrin/2014/08/04/top-100-sat-scores-ranking-which-colleges-have-the-brightest-kids/
It also considers many quality-of-life factors that US News and Forbes ignore.
Academics only count for 35% of the Niche rankings. For many of the other factors, a student survey is the data source.There is no way to know if students at two different colleges apply the same standards in evaluating factors such as student happiness, stress, or âguys and girlsâ.
Why should âaverage attendance at home football gamesâ affect a college ranking?
It might be an important factor (positive or negative) in personal âfitâ. But if youâre going to include attendance at football and basketball games, why not also include attendance at other events (such as concerts, guest lectures, plays, etc.)?
I believe there are no perfect Ranking for everybody agree. Personally I believe Caltec and Harvey Mudd are very strong STEM schools and they are great schools even ranking system like U.S. News are not placed them so high. I think test score is not everything but canât ignore the fact college use those test scores. In the Unigo website there are variety of school rankings and they are by students. Since there are so many colleges each student research by themselves and not just look from one ranking. I see some people ask the chance for Ivy league schools. For me Ivy league schools are so different each other so, if you want to go any Ivy league school is just looking for prestige. But International students like Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese once you graduate from Top college in U.S. your rest of life will be guaranteed so, their parents are willing to pay for the prep courses and counseling for their children. I guess they are very lucky to have rich parents.
Boston University is not even ranked in the top 100. Finally a ranking that makes sense! LOL
They donât like LACs, BYU is 8 places above Grinnell (36th and 44th) and University of Alabama is one place above Swarthmore (48th and 49th). I would like to meet the student who is deciding between Grinnell and BYU and uses this ranking system to make their decision.
US News ranks Caltech #10 among National Universities and Harvey Mudd #15 among National LACs. These are very high rankings in a country with thousands of colleges and universities.
The USA is not the UK, France, China or Japan. There is not just one or a few famous national universities (comparable to Oxbridge, the Sorbonne, Beijing University, Qinghua, and Tokyo University) that can write a lifetime golden meal ticket to high-achieving alumni. Alumni of average American universities can and do get good jobs in the national government, major banks, media, engineering firms, etc. So, upwardly mobile families here can confidently choose among colleges based on factors like athletics, student happiness, or âguys and girlsâ (even if some us us donât agree these are very good ranking criteria.) At least, thatâs how it has worked in the past.