Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., tied for third place in the Best Universities ranking of 2024 by U.S. News & World Report.
50 TOP COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
While the bulk of Poets&Quants For Undergrads readers are likely most interested in rankings of business programs, the U.S. News ranking evaluates schools on a host of other categories.
Its full 2024 Best National University Rankings ranks schools by region, social mobility, best liberal arts colleges, engineering, computer science and several other categories. If you’re still in the hunt for a school in a particular state or that excels in a particular area, the whole package is worth a look. You can find the full ranking here.
In a press release, U.S. News reported changing its overall ranking this year by putting a greater emphasis on social mobility and graduate outcomes. It calls these changes “the most significant methodological change in the rankings’ history.”
“More than 50% of an institution’s rank now comprises varying outcome measures related to success in enrolling and graduating students from all backgrounds with manageable debt and post-graduate success. In addition, five factors were removed: class size, faculty with terminal degrees, alumni giving, high school class standing and the proportion of graduates who borrow federal loans,” says U.S. News.
U.S. News evaluated nearly 1,500 four-year institutions on as many as 19 measures reflecting academic quality and graduate outcomes. The table below shows the colleges and universities that made it into the top 50 for 2024.
| 2024 Rank | School | State |
| 1 | Princeton | NJ |
| 2 | MIT | MA |
| 3 | Stanford | CA |
| 3 | Harvard | MA |
| 5 | Yale | CT |
| 6 | University of Pennsylvania | PA |
| 7 | Duke University | NC |
| 7 | California Institute of Technology | CA |
| 9 | Northwestern University | IL |
| 9 | Brown University | CA |
| 9 | John Hopkins University | MD |
| 12 | Columbia | NY |
| 12 | Cornell University | NY |
| 12 | University of Chicago | IL |
| 15 | University of California, Berkeley | CA |
| 15 | University of California, Los Angeles | CA |
| 17 | Rice University | TX |
| 18 | Vanderbilt | TN |
| 18 | Dartmouth College | NH |
| 20 | University of Notre Dame | IN |
| 21 | University of Michigan – Ann Arbor | MI |
| 22 | Georgetown University | DC |
| 22 | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | NC |
| 24 | Washington University in St. Louis | MO |
| 24 | Emory University | GA |
| 24 | Carnegie Mellon University | PA |
| 24 | University of Virginia | VA |
| 28 | University of Florida | FL |
| 28 | University of Southern California | CA |
| 28 | University of California, Davis | CA |
| 28 | University of California, San Diego | CA |
| 32 | University of Texas at Austin | TX |
| 33 | Georgia Institute of Technology – Main Campus | GA |
| 33 | University of California, Irvine | CA |
| 35 | University of Illinois Urbana – Champaign | IL |
| 35 | New York University | NY |
| 35 | University of California, Santa Barbara | CA |
| 35 | University of Wisconsin-Madison | WI |
| 39 | Boston College | MA |
| 40 | Rutgers University – New Brunswick | NJ |
| 40 | Tufts University | MA |
| 40 | University of Washington | WA |
| 43 | Boston University | MA |
| 43 | Ohio State University | OH |
| 43 | Purdue University | IN |
| 46 | University of Maryland, College Park | MD |
| 47 | Texas A & M University – College Station | TX |
| 47 | Lehigh University | PA |
| 47 | University of Georgia | GA |
| 47 | University of Rochester | NY |
| 47 | Virginia Tech | VA |
| 47 | Wake Forest University | NC |
NEXT PAGE: U.S. News ranking by business specialization
PAGE 4: U.S. News 100 Best Undergraduate Business Programs
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