At midnight on Wednesday, U.S. News & World Report released its 2016 Best Colleges list, the magazine’s annual survey that, for more than three decades, has been one of the most prominent if at times controversial metrics of academic excellence in American higher education.
The rankings, which assess nearly 1,800 colleges and universities on 16 criteria rarely see drastic change from year to year, and the latest iteration is no exception. For the third consecutive year, the top three spots on the list of national universities reliably went to Princeton, Harvard, and Yale Universities — the “Big Three,” in admissions industry slang — in that order. Columbia, Stanford, and the University of Chicago all placed fourth, as they did last year.
Johns Hopkins University enjoyed the only significant climb within the holding pattern. After years of hovering in the low teens (then making its way to 12th last year), Hopkins has eked its way into the coveted top ten shortlist for the first time since 2000, pushing out Dartmouth College to tie with the California Institute of Technology.