Parchment Rankings, 2016

Colleges and Universities A-Z Duke University
1

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/09/23/when-students-have-choices-among-top-colleges-which-one-do-they-choose/

  1. Stanford University
    1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    2. Harvey Mudd College
    3. Duke University
    4. Yale University
    5. United States Military Academy
    6. University of Pennsylvania
    7. University of Chicago
    8. United States Naval Academy
    9. University of Waterloo
    10. Swarthmore College
    11. Pomona College
    12. Bowdoin College
    13. Cal Tech
    14. Brown University
    15. University of Toronto
    16. Princeton University
    17. University of Notre Dame
    18. University of California, Berkeley
    19. McGill University
    20. Williams College
    21. University of California, Los Angeles
    22. Columbia University
    23. Barnard College
    24. Haverford College
2

Wow interesting. Surprised to see Princeton so far down on the list

3

Also just noticed that Harvard is not on the list. Why?

4

That’s pretty interesting, but how can you believe a ranking system that puts Harvard at 41, down 38 positions from last year?

5

^ The ranking is nonsensical but it’s still nice to see Duke at number 4. Prospective students assign a lot of weight to this sort of thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if this influences their thinking and becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophesy!

Also, Duke has been having an absolutely incredible domestic rankings year. It seems as though rankings that focus on outputs almost always view us in an incredibly favorable light. Duke has clearly mastered the art of making students eminently employable (just look at how good Fuqua is at turning middling executives into corporate big-wigs).

6

The Parchment numbers move around quite a bit from year to year. But averaging the yearly numbers from 2012 through 2016 gives you a top 25 that most people wouldn’t complain too much about.

  1. Stanford University
  2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  3. Harvard University
  4. Yale University
  5. Princeton University
  6. Cal Tech
  7. University of Pennsylvania
  8. Duke University
  9. Pomona College
  10. Brown University
  11. Swarthmore College
  12. University of Chicago
  13. Harvey Mudd College
  14. Columbia University
  15. Williams College
  16. Middlebury College
  17. Bowdoin College
  18. Dartmouth University
  19. Amherst College
  20. University of California, Berkeley
  21. Georgetown University
  22. University of Notre Dame
  23. Tufts University
  24. Cornell University
  25. Johns Hopkins University