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For many high school students and their families, finding the best college is a daunting but not impossible task. There are many factors that go into what makes a college “the best” fit, and the flat-out truth is that while there’s not one right answer, there are some solid places to start looking.
How much does it cost? Can I get in? Will I actually graduate from here? Are the students that I’m surrounding myself with smart? These should all sound like obvious considerations, but more often than not the name of a college or university will overshadow the actual benefits. That’s why we pulled together actual information to help us better define what we think should truly be considered the “Best Colleges.”
Using data and information pulled from Princeton Review and US News, we created a formula that ranked the 50 Best Colleges according to their graduation rate, acceptance rate (2014), SAT scores, tuition and freshman retention rate. In order to limit the number of schools we looked at, only the statistics from the US News‘ Top 50 Liberal Arts Colleges and Top 50 National Universities were used.
Below is a brief explanation of why we used the data we did:
For us, the graduation rates of colleges were the most important statistic because there’s no point in attending a certain institution if there’s a chance you’re not going to graduate. We awarded colleges and universities with above average graduation rates, and penalized those who fell below the average graduation rate. (Important note: these are the 6-year graduation rates, not just 4-year graduation rates.)
The acceptance rate of an institution was the second most important statistic because we assume that schools that accepts less students is picking better students from their pool of applicants than a school with a lower acceptance rate. In turn, this tells us that these schools are “better.” We awarded those colleges and universities with a below average acceptance rate, and penalized those who had an above average acceptance rate.
SAT scores (only math and reading, no written) were third most important because these standardized scores are the best way we have of measuring the intelligence of the students at the school. It’s not a perfect method, but it’s the best one we have. We awarded colleges and universities with above average SAT scores, and penalized those who fell below the average SAT scores.
In our opinion, tuition was the second most important statistic to keep in mind because of the growing number of students who graduate from college with debt. Studies show that students who take on more debt to attend a more prestigious college or university actually hurt themselves in the long run more than if they attended a more affordable four-year institution or even attended community college. We awarded schools with lower than average tuitions and penalized those schools with above average tuitions.
Freshman retention rates were weighted the least because of their similarity to graduation rates. We still chose to include this statistic because of the implication that freshman retention rates have: the higher the retention rate, the more freshman students stay focused on academics rather than other things.
So how did these statistics fit into our model? As we explained above, we weighted the averages of graduation rate, acceptance rate (2014), SAT scores, tuition and freshman retention rates, then used these numbers as a baseline for our model. Truthfully, setting up these equations was a little difficult for an English major like myself, so I used a more knowledgeable source in our office to help with the numbers. This is the equation we set up:
(Graduation Rate x 10)+(Acceptance Rate x 7)+(SAT Scores x 7)+(Tuition x 3)+(Freshman Retention Rate x 2)
The 50 Best Colleges/Universities In The US
1. United States Naval Academy (Annapolis, MD)
2. United States Military Academy (West Point, NY)
3. United States Air Force Academy (USAF Academy, CO)
4. Brigham Young University—Provo (Provo, UT)
5. University of Minnesota—Twin Cities (Minneapolis, MN)
6. Princeton University (Princeton, NJ)
7. Harvard University (Cambridge, MA)
8. University of California—Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA)
9. University of California—Berkeley (Berkeley, CA)
10. University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC)
11. Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, GA)
12. Rice University (Houston, TX)
13. California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, CA)
14. Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN)
15. University of Florida (Gainesville, FL)
16. Ohio State University—Columbus (Columbus, OH)
17. Yale University (New Haven, CT)
18. Stanford University (Stanford, CA)
19. University of Wisconsin—Madison (Madison, WI)
20. University of Maryland—College Park (College Park, MD)
21. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA)
22. University of Illinois—Urbana-Champaign (Champaign, IL)
23. Pomona College (Claremont, CA)
24. Washington University in St. Louis (St. Louis, MO)
25. Brown University (Providence, RI)
26. Harvey Mudd College (Claremont, CA)
27. University of Georgia (Athens, GA)
28. Soka University of America Aliso (Viejo, CA)
29. University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA)
30. University of Chicago (Chicago, IL)
31. Columbia University (New York, NY)
32. Duke University (Durham, NC)
33. Northwestern University (Evanston, IL)
34. College of William and Mary (Williamsburg, VA)
35. Swarthmore College (Swarthmore, PA)
36. Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH)
37. Pennsylvania State University—University Park (University Park, PA)
38. University of California—San Diego (La Jolla, CA)
39. Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD)
40. Bowdoin College (Brunswick, ME)
41. Colorado School of Mines (Golden, CO)
42. University of Texas—Austin (Austin, TX)
43. University of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, IN)
44. Purdue University—West Lafayette (West Lafayette, IN)
45. University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA)
46. Georgetown University (Washington, DC)
47. Claremont McKenna College (Claremont, CA)
48. Cornell University (Ithaca, NY)
49. University of Michigan—Ann Arbor (Ann Arbor, MI)
50. Amherst College (Amherst, MA)
Findings and Analysis
The biggest and most obvious takeaway is that US Military Academies are the best “value” because their tuition is free. Similarly, BYU which is subsidized by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is top of the list. Perhaps the biggest surprise, though, is the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities which comes in at #5 ahead of Princeton and the rest of the Ivy League schools.
The second most surprising to us is that large, public universities like University of Florida and Ohio State University show up as “better” schools than Stanford or Brown. While there are obviously other lists that would dispute this, it goes to show that places like Florida or OSU offer a tremendously valuable education.
According to our list, there a good amount of colleges and universities that place ahead of some Ivy League schools. Only Princeton and Harvard are in the top 10 schools, and you have places like UC-Berkeley and UCLA that come before even Yale.
We also learn that California is the best place to get an education, since 9 out of the 50 schools included on the list are in the state of California.
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