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College Ratings and Rankings
College rankings of America's best colleges and universities are compiled annually by a number of organizations based on a variety of criteria -- from standardized tests scores to student retention rate.
Why do applicants really care about rankings? Because you want to identify the best colleges and figure out whether you can get in.
While the statistics that accompany the rankings are useful for providing a general idea of the range of standardized test scores and GPAs of admitted students, that information is insufficient for determining your chances of admission at those colleges. There are more than 50 different criteria that are typically considered in admissions decisions. The only way to really know where you stand at top colleges is to see how well your background and achievements fit the admissions criteria at each college.
Go4College.com quantifies your chances of getting in. We combine our admissions expertise with advanced statistical analysis to give you your odds of admission at the colleges you are considering.
By learning that you have an 83% chance of getting into a college or a 35% chance, you can make the best and most informed decisions about where to apply.
Click here to get your chances of admission and see where you stand.
College Rankings Criticisms
Rankings are often criticized for relying on arbitrary or obsolete factors -- such as alumni giving and volumes in the library -- that may not be pertinent to measuring the quality of a school. For example, alumni giving may reflect how aggressive a school is in seeking alumni donations rather than how satisfied the alumni are with their education. Likewise, in the Internet Age, the number of volumes in the library may no longer reflect the quality of the educational experience. You should know and understand the factors that go into each set of rankings before drawing conclusions.
Our Approach to College Rankings
Although many college rankings exist, we have developed our own rankings. Our college rankings are independent and based on one criterion: the academic quality of the freshman class. We feel that the best colleges in America are those with the most talented freshman class, not the colleges with the most volumes in their libraries. The colleges on our top 100 list fit this criterion.
Below are four tiers of the nation's top colleges based on the quality of the freshman class. The colleges are listed in tiers rather than ranked individually. We believe that there is an incremental difference between a college that is, for example, ranked 7th versus one that is ranked 10th, and that it is more meaningful to consider colleges in tiers.
Tier I
Amherst College
Brown University
Cal Tech
Columbia University
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
Duke University
Emory University
Harvard College
Harvey Mudd
Johns Hopkins University
Middlebury College
MIT
Northwestern University
Pomona College
Princeton University
Rice University
Stanford University
Swarthmore College
University of Chicago
University of Pennsylvania
Washington University: STL
Wesleyan University
Williams College
Yale University
Tier II
Bard College
Bates College
Bowdoin College
Brandeis University
Carleton College
Carnegie Mellon
Claremont McKenna
Colby College
College of William & Mary
Cooper Union
Davidson College
Georgetown University
Georgia Tech
Grinnell College
Haverford College
Macalester College
New York University
Oberlin College
Reed College
Tufts College
University of Notre Dame
Vanderbilt University
Vassar College
Washington and Lee
Wellesley College
Tier III
Barnard College
California: Berkeley
Boston College
Boston University
Bucknell University
Case Western Reserve
Colgate University
Connecticut College
Hamilton College
Kenyon College
Lehigh University
Rhodes College
Rose-Hulman Institute of Tech
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
Scripps College
Trinity College
Tulane University
University of Michigan
University of Richmond
University of Rochester
University of Virginia
US Air Force
USC
Wake Forest University
Whitman College
Tier IV
Colorado College
Colorado School of Mines
Franklin & Marshall College
Furman University
George Washington University
Grove City College
Illinois Wesleyan University
Kalamazoo College
Lafayette College
Lewis & Clark College
Mt. Holyoke College
North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Puget Sound
Sarah Lawrence
Smith College
St. Olaf College
Stevens Institute of Technology
Trinity University
UCLA
University of Maryland
University of Wisconsin
US Coast Guard
US Military Academy - West Point
Villanova University
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI)
College Admissions Services provides chances of admission for the top 150 colleges in the college rankings and college rating lists. We have also compiled our own list of the best colleges, a list not based on any of the college rankings or ratings. Our list of best colleges and universities uses the quality of the incoming freshman class as the criterion for ranking colleges.
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