<p>Like everyone else, I have heard about Princeton's #1 ranking in USNWR. But what else, if anything, is Princeton ranked #1 for? Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>Most rankings are for graduate school, which Princeton doesn't rank very high in... usually 6th or 7th nationally. The reason USNWR is so popular is that it's about the only ranking for undergraduate.</p>
<p>Ummm, what are you talking about about? Princeton usually ranks incredibly well in graduate rankings as well.</p>
<p>Example,
NRC Rankings:
NRC</a> Rankings in Each of 41 Areas</p>
<p>Princeton's biggest weakness with respect to rankings comes from its size, especially in comparison to must larger schools like Harvard/Stanford/Cornell/Penn/etc. Sometimes certain rankings favor large institutions and Princeton suffers.</p>
<p>Take a look at the component parts evaluations that give rise to the overall USNWR ranking. A better question is, for all practical purposes, what ISN'T Princeton ranked #1 for?</p>
<p>I looked at those NRC rankings. Princeton is #1 in Philosophy and tied for #1 (with Cal) for Mathematics. For USNWR, Princeton is #1 for Average Alumni Giving Rate. Anything else?</p>
<p>It has the highest endowment per student.
List</a> of U.S. colleges and universities by endowment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>
<p>However, I find the question pretty silly. Is there really any substantial difference between #1 and #2, or even amongst the top 3 or 5 in some cases? For example, Princeton is ranked as #2 in Physics, but there is no way one can really assert that "Harvard has a better physics department than Princeton". Both have outstanding professors, graduate students, talented undergraduates, and their fair share of bigwig historical names (for Princeton, think Feynman, Panofsky, Thorne, Vafa [now at Harvard], and if you want to throw in the Institute for Advanced Study, of course you get Great Men like Einstein and Oppenheimer). </p>
<p>Of course, conversely, just because Princeton is ranked #1 in the USNWR, it doesn't mean that it's the best undergraduate institution in the country. Once you reach a certain cutoff point, from there it's just splitting hairs amongst schools in that "tier".</p>
<p>The question may seem "silly" to you, but the reality is that USNWR rankings do, in fact, influence the matriculation decisions of admitted students. See, <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/423230-influence-us-news-rankings-matriculation-decision-high-ability-students.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/423230-influence-us-news-rankings-matriculation-decision-high-ability-students.html</a>.</p>
<p>So Princeton is #1 in:</p>
<p>USNWR undergraduate rankings
Its doctorate program in Philiosophy (altho this is a 1993 NRC ranking)
Its doctorate program in Math (tied w/Cal per the 1993 NRC ranking)
Average annual alumni giving rate
Endowment per student</p>
<p>Anything else?</p>
<p>aerospace engineering, english, history, and near eastern studies (faculty scholarly productivity index); athletic performance among non-scholarship schools (directors cup); number of fields medalists (wikipedia); freshman retention rate (u.s. news); schools for hispanics (hispanic magazine); "school runs like butter" and "students happy with financial aid" (princeton review rankings); student indebtedness upon graduation (u.s news); student/faculty ratio (u.s. news), etc etc etc.</p>