Is it just me, or is it always rather surprising how low some Flagship Public Universities rank on here? (#46. Wisconsin, #48. Illinois/Texas, #50 Georgia, #54 Ohio State, #62. U Dub, #70 Minnesota, #79. Indiana U., #84 Iowa, #104 Colorado/Oregon/Tennessee. #117 Arizona State/Arizona)
So can Ga Tech now be moved into the CC Top Universities (non-Ivy) list? 
As far as the top 20 goes, same schools, different order. I imagine USNWR likes to change things up just a little bit every time they rank in order not to have the exact same list every time.
UCSB is interesting to me. UCSB went from #37 (2018) to #30 last year (2019) and now is back to #34 (2020). That seems like a lot of fluctuation to me.
With regard to the publics you can see that most of the schools that moved up give substantial FA (and therefore have more Pell Grant students), while certainly not a bad thing it doesn’t really reflect anything academically about the school. Look at UC Merced it moved into the top 100, yet its admitted student profile shows an ACT score mid range (25- 75%) of 19-27, not what I would call a high performing cohort, and that’s the admitted student profile, not sure they got even close to that with only a 13% yield.
I think that is a reflection on the shift of these rankings to step away from “How hard is this school to get into?” to “What will my outcome be from having attending this school?” In a world where student debt can be crippling, I suppose it isn’t totally unfair to take FA and Pell Grant opportunities into consideration.
True about UC Merced. However, it jumped 29 spots last year (5th biggest gain in nation), and 32 spots this year (#45 (Public); #104 (National rank)) on US News. Biggest gains of any UC for the last 2 years by far. Maybe biggest in the nation this year? This “new kid on the block” has been in the gym working out hard and bulking up fast…yield may increase rapidly…will continue upward and onward in a big way!
Many congratulations to Santa Clara University. First time go into National University Ranking List. The first time it ranks 54th.
Many many congratulations.
Someone explain this useless ranking and the math involved to me. How is it possible that UC-Berkeley is #22, yet when you go to the individual major rankings, they are right at the top in the entire US in virtually every traditional major? I did a random Google search for “top majors”, and the Princeton Review came up with these majors. The UC-Berkeley ranking, based on yes, US News’ own ranking, is noted.
- Computer Science - #1
- Communication / Media Studies - #4 in US (QS World ranking)
- Government / Political Science - #4
- Business / Business Administration (undergrad) - #3
- Economics - #1
- English - #1
- Psychology - #1
- Nursing - NA, Berkeley doesn’t offer Nursing
- Chemical Engineering - #2
- Biology - #4
Just to show that I wasn’t manipulating the majors, some more traditional majors:
Cognitive Science/Psychology - #1
Mathematics - #2
Mechanical Engineering - #3
Chemistry - #2
Civil Engineering - #1
History - #4
Philosophy - #6 in QS World Rankings
Physics - #3
Sociology - #3
Statistics - #2
And I didn’t even include Electrical Engineering (#2) since it could be confused with Computer Science.
A few days ago, this article hit my inbox about Cal, but I have no idea how it plays into the ranking:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/UC-Berkeley-chancellor-confronts-diversity-14406384.php
Kudos to Santa Clara University…a very good school! Underrated in the past…but not anymore!
Good article…housing and increasing “unrepresented minority” diversity has been an issue at Cal for some time.
At a graduate and professional school level, I consider UC Berkeley to be perhaps one of the top five schools in the world. But at an undergraduate level, which is what the US News ranking focuses on, I’d rate Cal as similar to other top public flagships. There’s nothing special about sitting in freshman and sophomore classes with 500 other students. I think the #22 ranking is about right.
What I find interesting is how the University of Washington keeps dropping. When I was living in Seattle back in the 80’s, it was considered to be one of the top four or five publics. At least that was the impression in Seattle. Now it’s moving towards the middle of the pack.
@Fisherman99 Yes last year USNWR introduced the Pell grant as part of its criteria which coincides with UC Merced’s rapid rise. Can we really say that UC Merced is equivalent to Oregon, Colorado, Utah and South Carolina flagships, all of which have far better admitted student profiles, its not even close. I, for one, am not a fan of mixing social issues into what most consider academic rankings which skews the numbers. Obviously USNWR can do what they like but now its system is more convoluted then ever. It would be awesome if they had an interactive site that allowed anyone to take their criteria, weight it as the individual saw fit, and spit out a ranking that coincided with what the individual thinks is important.
@ProfessorPlum168 I’ll agree with you on the overall ranking being fairly useless, one needs to look at the individual majors to get a perspective on the academic ranking of the major, which * eliminates a lot of the “non academic” criteria included the overall ranking of the school.
US News rankings over time:
2008-2015:
https://publicuniversityhonors.com/2015/06/13/u-s-news-national-university-rankings-2008-present/
2013-2020:
https://publicuniversityhonors.com/2016/09/18/average-u-s-news-rankings-for-126-universities-2010-1017/
@simba9 , Washington was 41 or 42 from 2008 to 2012. It dropped rapidly over the last few years and is 62 this year; during this same period, the academic profile of the entering class has improved significantly.
True to a certain extent…UC Merced may not be equivalent to those flagships, but the gap is decreasing…student outcomes are solid at UC Merced too. Would be nice to have a site where you put your own criteria in as well. Not going to complain about the rise of UC Merced as it brings up the entire University of California System. All 9 locations now basically cracking the Top 100 nationally, and ALL are in Top 50 for publics.
^Or, we could just go back to the old system when USNews was almost entirely based on “reputation” (i.e., faculty publications.)
Alabama went from 77 to 153. Dropping like a rock. Holy cow.
“Alabama went from 77 to 153. Dropping like a rock. Holy cow”
Losing the NC game really hurt!