Here Are The Best Colleges In North Carolina: Study

A new report has ranked 500 colleges nationwide — including 17 in North Carolina — as high schoolers scramble to sign up for SAT exams and fill out college applications. The personal finance website WalletHub unveiled its 2019 college and university rankings Monday. The top schools in America won’t shock you (the usual suspects are all there) and the authors say the best university in North Carolina is none other than Duke University in Durham, beating out University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University in Raleigh for bragging rights.

Duke University ranked highly in student selectivity, according to the authors. The study compared 951 higher-education institutions across the country based on 30 metrics. The metrics range from student-faculty ratio to graduation rate to post-attendance median salary. WalletHub then organized the results by ranking each college in seven categories: student selectivity, cost and financing, faculty resources, campus safety, campus experience, educational outcomes and career outcomes.

Here’s the breakdown for North Carolina:

Duke University

• Overall rank: 6th
• Total score: 76.15/100 points
• Percentile: 99 (99 is best)

University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Overall rank: 33
• Total score: 71.23/100 points
• Percentile: 97

North Carolina State University - Raleigh

• Overall rank: 74
• Total score: 65.56/100 points
• Percentile: 92

Davidson College

• Overall rank: 76
• Total score: 65.35/100 points
• Percentile: 92

Appalachian State University

• Overall rank: 187
• Total score: 58.35/100 points
• Percentile: 80

Western Carolina University

• Overall rank: 207
• Total score: 57.92/100 points
• Percentile: 78

University of North Carolina - Wilmington

• Overall rank: 222
• Total score: 57.41/100 points
• Percentile: 77

University of Mount Olive

• Overall rank: 248
• Total score: 56.76/100 points
• Percentile: 74

Salem College

• Overall rank: 271
• Total score: 56.48/100 points
• Percentile: 72

Elon University

• Overall rank: 273
• Total score: 56.44/100 points
• Percentile: 71

Barton College

• Overall rank: 308
• Total score: 56.11/100 points
• Percentile: 68

Gardner-Webb University

• Overall rank: 378
• Total score: 55.31/100 points
• Percentile: 60

University of North Carolina - Charlotte

• Overall rank: 387
• Total score: 55.2/100 points
• Percentile: 59

Catawba College

• Overall rank: 393
• Total score: 55.09/100 points
• Percentile: 59

University of North Carolina - Asheville

• Overall rank: 424
• Total score: 54.77/100 points
• Percentile: 55

University of North Carolina - Greensboro

• Overall rank: 434
• Total score: 54.58/100 points
• Percentile: 54

Meredith College

• Overall rank: 472
• Total score: 54.11/100 points
• Percentile: 50

WalletHub scored each of the seven metrics out of 100 possible points, with a 100 being the best school performance and the most favorable conditions for undergraduate students while they’re in school and after leaving. The authors then determined each school’s weighted average across each metric to calculate the overall score and used that to rank them. Public four-year and above schools were included as well as private, not-for-profit, four-year and above schools.

Student selectivity and educational outcomes received the most weight of all the categories in WalletHub’s rankings, accounting for 25 and 20 points, respectively. Student selectivity was largely based on net cost while educational outcomes looked mostly at a college’s graduation rate and retention rate.

You’ll recognize most, if not all, of the top schools in America. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, better known as MIT, boasted the top overall ranking with a total score of 80.1. Princeton, Yale, Harvard and California Institute of Technology rounded out the top five.

Here are the top 10 schools and overall scores for each. All were in the 99th percentile.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Overall rank: 1
• Total score: 80.1/100 points

Princeton University

• Overall rank: 2
• Total score: 79.5/100 points

Yale University

• Overall rank: 3
• Total score:78.86/100 points

Harvard University

• Overall rank: 4
• Total score: 78.58/100 points

California Institute of Technology

• Overall rank: 5
• Total score: 77.73/100 points

Duke University

• Overall rank: 6
• Total score: 76.15/100 points

University of Pennsylvania

• Overall rank: 7
• Total score: 76.1/100 points

Columbia University

• Overall rank: 8
• Total score: 75.89/100 points

Rice University

• Overall rank: 9
• Total score: 75.67/100 points

Stanford University

• Overall rank: 10
• Total score: 75.32/100 points

WalletHub used data collected from National Center for Education Statistics, Council for Community and Economic Research, U.S. Department of Education, COLLEGEdata and PayScale.

Click here to read the full report.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.
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