Tuesday, September 19, 2023
2024 U.S. News College Rankings Released With Biggest Methodology Changes In History, Including First-Ever Measure Of Faculty Research
U.S. News & World Report has released its 2024 College Rankings. In the most recent law school rankings released in May, U.S. News made the most significant changes in the methodology in the history of the rankings. U.S. News followed suit with the most significant changes in the methodology in the history of the college rankings:
U.S. News & World Report made refinements to this year's rankings formula by dropping five longstanding factors, modifying the weights of several other factors, and introducing a few new ones. ...
[S]chools' eligibility to be ranked was not contingent on their participation in U.S. News' surveys. But the vast majority of schools U.S. News surveyed did report data to U.S. News – including 99 of the top 100 ranked National Universities and 97 of the top 100 National Liberal Arts Colleges. ...
Five ranking factors totaling 18% of the previous edition's rankings were removed from the formula completely. These factors and their corresponding weights last year were class size (8%), the proportion of a school's faculty with terminal degrees (3%), alumni giving rate (3%), the proportion of graduates borrowing (2%) and high school class standing (2%).
Faculty research (National Universities only): To be grouped in the National Universities ranking, an institution must be classified in the Carnegie Classifications as awarding doctorate-level degrees and conducting at least "moderate research." In alignment with these schools' missions, U.S. News introduced four new faculty research ranking factors based on bibliometric data, such as publications and citations, in partnership with Elsevier. They each reflect a five-year window from 2018-2022 as well as the strength and impact of the faculty instead of the scale of the university.
- Citations per publication (1.25%) is total citations divided by total publications. This is the average number of citations a university's publications receive. The metrics are extracted from SciVal based on Elsevier’s Scopus® Data.
- Field weighted citation impact (1.25%) is citation impact per paper, normalized for each field. The metrics are extracted from SciVal based on Elsevier’s Scopus® Data.
- The share of publications cited in the top 5% of the most cited journals (1%). The metrics are extracted from SciVal based on Elsevier’s Scopus® Data.
- The share of publications cited in the top 25% of the most cited journals (0.5%). The metrics are extracted from SciVal based on Elsevier’s Scopus® Data.
Universities with fewer than 5,000 total publications over five years were discounted on a sliding scale to reduce outliers based on small cohort sizes, and to require a minimum quantity of research to score well on the factor. Each indicator is calculated at the school level.
In February 2019, U.S. News announced it would publish a law faculty scholarly impact ranking in the 2019 law school rankings based on 5-year citation data from HeinOnline (FAQ; Updated FAQ; Additional Guidance; A Defense And Explanation Of The U.S. News 'Citation' Ranking). In November 2020, U.S. News announced it would be publishing the scholarly impact ranking in 2021. After much criticism of the proposed ranking, in June 2021 U.S. News abandoned its effort to rank law faculty scholarly impact.
For more on the methodology changes in the 2024 U.S. News college rankings methodology, see:
- U.S. News, How U.S. News Calculated the 2024 Best Colleges Rankings
- U.S. News, A More Detailed Look at the Ranking Factors
- U.S. News, Key Changes in How the 2024 Best Colleges Rankings Were Calculated
- Chronicle of Higher Education, The ‘U.S. News’ Rankings Are Here, With an Altered Formula and Few Defectors
- New York Times, With a New Formula, U.S. News Rankings Boost Some State Universities
- University Business, The U.S. News Exodus Never Happened. How Did the Top Ranking Service Outlast Naysayers?
- Washington Post, U.S. News College Rankings Are Scrambled as its Formula Changes
Here are the Top 25 National Universities:
|
Rank |
National Universities |
| 1 |
Princeton |
| 2 | MIT |
| 3 | Harvard |
| 3 | Stanford |
| 5 | Yale |
| 6 | Penn |
| 7 | Cal-Tech |
| 7 | Duke |
| 9 | Brown |
| 9 | Johns Hopkins |
| 9 | Northwestern |
| 12 | Chicago |
| 12 | Columbia |
| 12 | Cornell |
| 15 | UC-Berkeley |
| 15 | UCLA |
| 17 | Rice |
| 18 | Dartmouth |
| 18 | Vanderbilt |
| 20 | Notre Dame |
| 21 | Michigan |
| 22 | Georgetown |
| 22 | North Carolina |
| 24 | Carnegie Mellon |
| 24 | Emory |
| 24 | Virginia |
| 24 | Washington University |
Prior Years' U.S. News National University Rankings:
Here are the Top 25 Liberal Arts Colleges:
|
Rank |
Liberal Arts Colleges |
| 1 | Williams |
| 2 | Amherst |
| 3 | U.S. Naval Academy |
| 4 | Pomona |
| 4 | Swarthmore |
| 4 | Wellesley |
| 7 | U.S. Air Force Academy |
| 8 | West Point |
| 9 | Bowdoin |
| 9 | Carleton |
| 11 | Barnard |
| 11 | Claremont McKenna |
| 11 | Grinnell |
| 11 | Middlebury |
| 11 | Wesleyan |
| 16 | Davidson |
| 16 | Hamilton |
| 16 | Harvey Mudd |
| 16 | Smith |
| 16 | Vassar |
| 21 | Colgate |
| 21 | Haverford |
| 21 | Washington & Lee |
| 24 | Bates |
| 25 | Colby |
| 25 | Richmond |
Prior Years' U.S. News Liberal Arts College Rankings:
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2023/09/2024-us-news-college-rankings.html
