<p>Maxy, the USNWR is also very unreliable. It is a publication geared toward sales rather than truly rating universities. That's because 25% of the USNWR sales are generated by the college ranking edition. Do you believe for one minute that they are out to uncover the truth? All that publication does is try to differentiate between universities by blowing unimportant criteria out of proportion. </p>
<p>The Peer assessment score of the USNWR is probably the closest thing to an accurate rating (not ranking) of US universities. That aspect of the USNWR has remained constant over the last 20 years. The general ratings have been as follows:</p>
<p>4.9/5.0</p>
<h1>1 Harvard University</h1>
<h1>1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology</h1>
<h1>1 Princeton University</h1>
<h1>1 Stanford University</h1>
<h1>1 Yale University</h1>
<p>4.7-4.8/5.0</p>
<h1>6 California Institute of Technology</h1>
<h1>6 Columbia University</h1>
<h1>6 University of California-Berkeley</h1>
<p>4.5-4.6/5.0</p>
<h1>9 Cornell University</h1>
<h1>9 Duke University</h1>
<h1>9 Johns Hopkins University</h1>
<h1>9 University of Chicago</h1>
<h1>9 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor</h1>
<h1>9 University of Pennsylvania</h1>
<p>4.3-4.4/5.0</p>
<h1>15 Brown University</h1>
<h1>15 Carnegie Mellon University</h1>
<h1>15 Dartmouth College</h1>
<h1>15 Northwestern University</h1>
<h1>15 University of California-Los Angeles</h1>
<h1>15 University of Virginia</h1>
<p>4.0-4.2/5.0</p>
<h1>21 Emory University</h1>
<h1>21 Georgetown University</h1>
<h1>21 Rice University</h1>
<h1>21 University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign</h1>
<h1>21 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill</h1>
<h1>21 University of Notre Dame</h1>
<h1>21 University of Texas-Austin</h1>
<h1>21 University of Wisconsin-Madison</h1>
<h1>21 Vanderbilt University</h1>
<h1>21 Washington University-St Louis</h1>
<p>Please try to keep in mind that VERY LITTLE separates each group. In many ways, schools like Brown and Dartmouth are better than schools like Cornell and Michigan. It is very dangerous to assume that those tiny little difference can truly make one university better than another. There are over 100 good universities in the US. The top 25-30 are all World Class and very little separates the top 5 from the next 20.</p>