21 NY Colleges Among Nation’s Best in U.S. News & World Report’s 2017 Rankings

U.S. News & World Report released its 2017 rankings Tuesday of the best colleges in America, and many New York schools made the cut.

The process of college-hunting can lead to information overload, but U.S. News’ rankings are considered an important resource for many. The news organization spends months compiling data from hundreds of schools around the country. While U.S. News & World Report ended its print magazine in 2010, it still publishes online and a print version of its college rankings.

U.S. News & World Report has several different rankings, including best universities, best liberal arts college, best regional universities and even best colleges for value. New York colleges made all of the above mentioned lists.

The top-ranked New York school on the 2017 "Best National Universities" list is Columbia University, coming in at No. 4 in the nation. Another Ivy League New York school, Cornell University, is No. 15.

The following schools in New York made the list of the top 200 "Best National Universities":

• Columbia University (4)
• Cornell University (15)
• University of Rochester (32)
• New York University (36)
• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (39)
• Fordham University (60)
• Syracuse University (60)
• Yeshiva University (66)
• Binghamton University (86)
• Stony Brook University (96)
• SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (99)
• University at Buffalo (99)
• Rochester Institute of Technology (107)
• Clarkson University (129)
• New School (129)
• Hofstra University (133)
• Adelphi University (146)
• St. John Fisher College (146)
• University at Albany (146)
• St. John's University (164)
• Pace University (188)

These are the top 10 schools in the country:
1. Princeton University
2. Harvard University
3. University of Chicago
4. Yale University
5. Columbia University
5. Stanford University
7. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
8. Duke University
8. University of Pennsylvania
10. Johns Hopkins University

So, how are the rankings compiled?

U.S. News uses five categories of data that are all weighted differently.

• Outcomes (30 percent): Hard student performance data such as retention, graduation rate performance and graduation rate.
• Expert opinion (22.5 percent): More subjective data that includes opinions of presidents, provosts, high school counselors and admissions deans.
• Faculty resources (20 percent): Class size, student-to-faculty ratio, proportion of full-time faculty, proportion of professors with the highest degrees in their field and faculty salary.
• Student excellence (12.5 percent): How incoming students are performing on measures such as ACT/SAT scores, proportion of first-year students in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class and acceptance rate.
• Financial resources (10 percent): How much money the school spends on things such as instruction, research and student services. (Spending on dorms, food and sports don’t count.)
• Alumni giving (5 percent): What percentage of living alumni with a bachelor’s degree have given to their school that year.

“College is expensive,” U.S. News Chief Data Strategist Robert 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’s lists. 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.

You 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.”

Find all of the ranking here.

Written by Marc Torrence, Patch National Staff

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