2012 College Rankings

It is that time of year again, the time to start worrying about college. US News and World Report released their 2012 college rankings a few weeks ago, and for anyone who follows the admissions game, this is a big deal.

Colleges often compete with one another to improve their rankings and become even more exclusive. This results in more students applying to top notch universities, creating a larger pool of applicants. The university then gets to reject a larger number of applicants, lowering acceptance rate and adding to the "exclusive" feeling one gets at being at such a university. Acceptance becomes more difficult and students must work even harder in high school. It is a terrible cycle, but the rankings do have some value for quickly judging the caliper of a school. They give students and parents a basic and easy way to compare schools and see what is a reasonable college goal.

Here are the top 20 schools in the 2012 rankings for national universities:
(If more than one school has the same number, they are tied for that rank.)

1. Harvard
1. Princeton
3. Yale
4. Columbia
5. Cal Tech
5. MIT
5. Stanford
5. University of Chicago
5. University of Pennsylvania
10. Duke
11. Dartmouth
12. Northwestern
13. Johns Hopkins
14. Washington University in St. Louis
15. Brown
15. Cornell
17. Rice
17. Vanderbilt
19. University of Notre Dame
20. Emory

Here are the top 10 liberal arts colleges for 2012:

1. Williams
2. Amherst
3. Swarthmore
4. Pomona
5. Middlebury
6. Bowdoin
6. Carleton
6. Wellesley
9. Claremont MnKenna
10. Haverford

The full list of rankings for both national universities and liberal arts colleges can be found here.