UNH, Dartmouth Make U.S. News 2017 College Rankings

HANOVER, NH — Dartmouth College and the University of New Hampshire scored high marks on U.S. News & World Report's 2017 "Best Colleges" rankings. The rankings were announced Tuesday. Dartmouth registered No. 11, while UNH came in at No. 107.

This is the top 10 nationwide:

1. Princeton University, New Jersey

2. Harvard University, Massachusetts

3. University of Chicago, Illinois (tie)

3. Yale University, Connecticut (tie)

5. Columbia University, New York (tie)

5. Stanford University, California (tie)

7. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

8. Duke University, North Carolina (tie)

8. University of Pennsylvania (tie)

10. Johns Hopkins University (MD)

U.S. News 2017 College Rankings

Dartmouth College

• Tuition/fees: $51,438
• Room/board: $14,736
• Enrollment: 6,350

University of New Hampshire

• In-state tuition/fees: $17,624
• Out-of-state tuition/fees: $31,424
• Enrollment: 15,398

In addition to Harvard and MIT, five other Massachusetts colleges made the rankings.

U.S. News Chief Data Strategist Robert Morse told Patch that the publication considers objective factors such as graduation and retention rates.

“College is expensive,” Morse told Patch in an email. “In addition to considering factors like location, cost, course offerings and activities, families should pay close attention to graduation and retention rates.
“These are important indicators of how well a school supports its students academically and financially. The Best Colleges rankings measure academic excellence, and we believe that students and their families should strongly consider academic quality when choosing a college.”

Typically, the prestigious Ivy League schools have a stronghold on the top of U.S. News’ lists. Last year, for instance, Princeton University, Harvard University and Yale University took the first three slots on the national rankings.

That’s all well and good for the best of the best high school students, but what about the rest?

The rankings are broken out by state and by category. Students and parents can also look at the publication’s rankings of best value schools and best public schools and the best schools by discipline such as engineering and business.

They can also drill down and see how specific schools perform across several metrics.

“U.S. News believes that the more information that is available to students, the better,” Morse told Patch. “Rankings, done right, are a useful source of information for students. U.S. News rankings focus specifically on assessing academic quality of schools. If academic quality is a top priority, our rankings are an ideal place to start.”

The methodology behind them includes five differently weighted categories:

• student performance data (retention, graduation rate, etc.);
• expert opinion (from presidents, provosts, high school counselors and admissions deans);
• faculty resources (including class size, student-to-faculty ratio and more); student excellence (includes incoming students' test scores and more);
• financial resources (how much money does the school spend on instruction? research? student services?); and
• alumni giving (how many graduates give back).

Marc Torrence (Patch National Staff) contributed to this report

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