U.S. News and World Report has placed MIT fifth in its annual rankings of the nation’s best colleges and universities, which were announced today. The Institute has moved up from the No. 7 spot it occupied previously; it now shares the No. 5 spot with Columbia University and Stanford University.
MIT’s engineering program maintained its standing at the top of the magazine’s list of undergraduate engineering programs at a doctoral institution. The Institute also placed first in six out of 12 engineering disciplines. No other institution is No. 1 in more than two disciplines.
MIT also remains the No. 2 undergraduate business program, this year standing alone in a spot it had previously shared with the University of California at Berkeley. Among business subfields, MIT is ranked No. 1 in three specialties.
In the overall institutional rankings, U.S. News placed Princeton University in the No. 1 spot, followed by Harvard University. The University of Chicago and Yale University are tied for No. 3.
One of the factors in the overall rankings is the “peer assessment score,” which reflects assessments by presidents, provosts, and top admissions officials at peer institutions. MIT, Princeton, Harvard, and Stanford tied for the highest peer assessment score in this year’s rankings (4.9 out of a possible 5.0). MIT, Harvard, Yale, and Stanford all received assessment scores of 5.0 from high school counselors.
MIT placed first in six engineering specialties: aerospace/aeronautical/astronautical engineering; chemical engineering; computer engineering; electrical/electronic/communications engineering; materials engineering; and mechanical engineering. In the area of biomedical engineering, MIT’s undergraduate program ranks third, and in civil engineering it ranks fifth.
Other schools in the top five overall for undergraduate engineering programs are Stanford, Berkeley, Caltech, and Georgia Tech.
Among undergraduate business specialties, the MIT Sloan School of Management leads in three areas: management information systems; production/operations management; and quantitative analysis/methods. MIT Sloan also ranks second in entrepreneurship and in supply chain management/logistics, and it ranks third in finance.
The No. 1-ranked undergraduate business program overall is at the University of Pennsylvania; the top five also include Berkeley, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and New York University.
MIT ranks as the third most innovative university in the nation, according to the U.S. News peer assessment survey of top academics. The Institute is also fifth on the magazine’s list of national universities that offer students the best value, based on the school’s ranking and the net cost of attendance for a student who received the average level of need-based financial aid.
