In conventional secular rankings of colleges and universities, the highest-ranked Catholic schools do tend to be Jesuit. For example, seven of the ten top-ranked Catholic schools in the 2017 US News “national university” rankings are Jesuit (marked with * below)::
15 Notre Dame
20 Georgetown*
31 Boston College*
50 Villanova
60 Fordham*
86 Marquette*
86 U San Diego
96 St Louis U*
99 Loyola Chicago*
107 U San Francisco*
The highest-ranked Catholic school in the “national liberal arts college” category is Holy Cross, which is Jesuit.
And most (not all) of the top-ranked Catholic schools in the “regional university” categories are Jesuit. These include:
- Loyola Maryland, Fairfield, and St Joseph's in the East
- Creighton, Xavier, and John Carroll in the Midwest
- Loyola New Orleans in the South
- Santa Clara, Loyola Marymount, and Gonzaga in the West.
Not all highly-ranked Catholic schools are Jesuit, and not all Jesuit schools are highly ranked. But there are enough highly-ranked Jesuit schools to make even non-Catholics take notice.