U.S. News 2019 College Rankings Revealed

The 2019 issue of U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Colleges” – often viewed as the bible to the college industry – has hit the newsstands.  New Jersey’s Princeton University is still in first place (for the 8th consecutive year) as the “Best National University.”  It’s followed by Harvard (2nd), Columbia, M.I.T., University of Chicago and Yale (tied for 3rd), Stanford (7th), Duke and University of Pennsylvania (tied for 8th) and Johns Hopkins and Northwestern University (tied for 10th).

While a college’s overall ranking may be of interest, the best use of rankings, for most students, is to identify the specific criteria that are important to them.  In the U.S. News rankings, for example, each school is rated on its average freshmen retention rate.  This is the percent of freshmen that return to the college for their sophomore year, indicating a level of happiness or satisfaction with their college.  The top 25 national universities all reported first-year student retention rates of 97% to 99%, with the exceptions of Georgetown and University of Southern California (96%) and Emory University (94%).

Another category lists the percent of classes with fewer than 20 students, and another lists the percent of classes with 50 or more students.  A popular New Jersey college with small classes is The College of New Jersey which seldom, if ever, hosts a class in excess of 50 students.

A key component in choosing a college should be the availability of a student’s chosen major, or field of study.  Here, too, the rankings can provide valuable information.  For example, U.S. News not only ranks the best undergraduate engineering programs in general, but also ranks them by their specialties.  At engineering schools where the highest degree offered is a bachelor’s or master’s, the highest ranked university for chemical engineering (Bucknell) is not the top ranked for civil engineering (Rose-Hulman) or for computer engineering (Carnegie Mellon).

Students can likewise differentiate among the best undergraduate business programs, where University of Pennsylvania ranks top for Finance and Real Estate, while University of Michigan places first for Management, Marketing, and Supply Chain Management/Logistics.  For International Business, University of South Carolina is #1.

Students in the market for a college education should seek all of the pertinent information available in making what is likely to be a very expensive decision that will profoundly affect the rest of their lives. 

Susan Alaimo is the founder of SAT Smart. For the past 25 years, SAT Smart’s Ivy League educated tutors have prepared students for the PSAT, SAT, ACT, Subject Tests, AP courses, and all high school subjects. Visit www.SATsmart.com or call 908-369-5362.