U Chicago, Cornell and Dartmouth couldn’t make top 10 on Niche’s 2020 Best Colleges list, Stanford, MIT, Rice and Duke took top spots. It looks like competition is rising above Ivies.
NICHE 2020 Top Colleges (formerly College Prowler)
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MIT
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Stanford
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Yale
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Harvard
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Princeton
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Duke
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Brown
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Columbia
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UPenn
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Rice
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Northwestern University
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Vanderbilt University
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Pomona College
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WashUStL
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Dartmouth College
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CalTech
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Notre Dame
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U. Chicago
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USC
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Cornell University
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Bowdoin College
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Amherst College
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Michigan
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Georgetown University
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Tufts University
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UCLA
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Johns Hopkins
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Carnegie Mellon
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Virginia
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Emory University
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Haverford College
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Carleton College
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Middlebury College
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Barnard College
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Williams College
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Wash & Lee
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USMA @ West Point
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Georgia Tech
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Wellesley College
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Swarthmore College
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UCAl-Berkeley
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Wake Forest University
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UNC
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Northeastern (Boston)
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Davidson College
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NYU
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Bates College
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Boston College
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Claremont McKenna College
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Harvey Mudd College
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University of Texas at Austin
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Colby College
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Hamilton College
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Wesleyan University
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Lehigh University
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College of Wm. & Mary
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Colgate University
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Virginia Tech
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University of Florida
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Boston University
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University of Richmond
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Smith College
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Wisconsin
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Illinois
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Vassar College
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University of Georgia
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Colorado College
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Cooper Union
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Grinnell
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Bucknell University
Its the same top 20 universities in a different order. Mix them up how you want there is very little difference between all of them.
I agree. Once you make it to the level of top 20 colleges, it basically depends on luck and cost for which one of these you end up at. You’ll be fine at any of these and differences at this level are minor. You may fit in better at one or the other but colleges aren’t too accurate in picking applicants.
@Riversider “Once you make it to the level of top 20 colleges, it basically depends on luck and cost for which one of these you end up at. You’ll be fine at any of these and differences at this level are minor. You may fit in better at one or the other but colleges aren’t too accurate in picking applicants.”
I completely agree @riversider that all top 20s offer a comparable level of education and experience. Of note however is the consistency in the top ten across Niche, WSJ and Forbes.
8 schools (MIT,Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Brown, Duke, and Penn) are on all 3 top ten lists. Not sure if this is the tail wagging the dog but all 8 of those schools are in the top ten for lowest acceptance rate. Also calls into question USNW influence. Data below…
Niche
1 MIT
2 Stanford
3 Yale
4 Harvard
5 Princeton
6 Duke
7 Brown
8 Columbia
9 Penn
10 Rice
Forbes
1 Harvard
2 Stanford
3 Yale
4 MIT
5 Princeton
6 Penn
7 Brown
8 Caltech
9 Duke
10 Dartmouth
WSJ
1 Harvard
2 MIT
3 Yale
4 Columbia
5 Caltech
6 Stanford
7 Brown
7 Duke
9 Princeton
10 Penn
Admission Rates
1 Harvard REA + RD: 1,950 out of 43,330 (4.5%)
2 Columbia ED + RD: ~2,171 out of 42,569 (~5.1%)
3 Princeton SCEA + RD: 1,895 out of 32,804 (5.8%)
4 Yale SCEA + RD: 2,178 out of 36,843 (5.9%)
5 U Chicago ED + EA + RD (5.9%)
6 Brown ED+RD: 2,553 out of 38,674 (6.6%)
7 MIT EA + RD: 1410 out of 21,312 (6.6%)
8 Duke ED + RD: 3,064 out of 41,613 (7.4%)
9 Penn ED + RD: 3,345 out of 44,960 (7.4%)
10 Dartmouth ED + RD: 1,876 out of 23,650 (7.9%)
- Stanford would historically be at or near the top but no longer reports.
So as not to be misunderstood Chicago, Columbia, Dartmouth, Rice, Caltech, etc in my mind are of equal (if not superior) caliber, “prestige” and quality than those on all 3 lists. Not suggesting these rankings are any more “correct” than USNW just noting the conspicuous overlap across lists and selectivity.
Well yeah. Especially since it’s an open secret that most of these rankings check their results “accuracy” according to whether Harvard, Yale or Princeton (and, more often than not, all three) show up in the results. With those three as your template, the results are going to tack pretty closely to the membership of COFHE with subtle changes in the algorithm from year to year: http://web.mit.edu/cofhe/
@circuitrider What drives the selectivity overlap in your opinion? Are the applicants independent thinkers validating the rankings by applying in mass or are they being drawn to the schools by virtue of the rankings? Chicken or egg?
^Clearly, internationals have had a tremendous effect on the selectivity of many colleges and universities over the space of the last twenty years, particularly as some of the big players like, China and India, produce more middle-class children than there are seats for them at elite universities at home. Trying to convince them that there’s no discernible difference between say, Columbia and Emory or Cornell and UT-Austin is a very, very difficult job. And, don’t even start me on the subject of LACs. A couple of years ago, a few of us went through a grueling experience trying to convice a 16 y/o girl from Zimbabwe that she was too young and inexperiened to attend Dartmouth and that Amherst would be better for her. The excuse for picking the former over the latter was a five-year engineering degree that could have been piggy-backed by several other NESCACs, but, the truth was that back home in Zimbabwe, people would recognize the Dartmouth name but not Amherst’s.
So yeah, there’s supply and demand, all sorts of market forces, (including the demise of legitimate print journalism in this country), all colliding to create a winner-takes-all system for any American college or university that can poke its head above the fray long enough to create a self-perpetuating buzz for itself.
Dartmouth is comparable to LACs in size and likely as unknown in Zimbabwe as Amherst.
And, to some extent, the “overall” rankings means much less than specific programs at various schools. My D is quite happy at a top 10 Engineering program at a school not even on the list.
Note that Niche’s top overall grade (A+) extends to the 98th ranked school, with grades of A beginning at the 99th school.
@RichInPitt Good personal anecdotes but rankings are based on statistics and polls. What works for one student may not work for another. By looking at a bigger data set, it’s relatively easier to guess which schools are more suitable.