University Benchmarks

Ranking the Top 100 Academic Universities

UniversityBenchmarks.com ranks the universities that attract and produce the best academic students.

There are many 'University Rankings' on the internet. Most rankings rely heavily on subjective metrics like 'reputation' and 'selectivity'. UniversityBenchmarks is purely an academic ranking model. The rankings are based on the reported academic and financial metrics of the colleges. There are no subjective factors like 'reputation' that are used. The calculations are performed using normal statistical models. All universities are considered equal and there is no weighting of the ranking categories.

The university 2014-2015 dataset is comprised of over 2400 US Universities & Colleges and comes from multiple sources using the most favorable reported metrics for a university.

The universities are ranked against each other in each filtered set. It is an iterative process whereby lower ranking universities are removed and the set is re-ranked until the final set of 100 is reached.

Selecting 'Rank Top 10 Only' will show the Top 10 for each filter category ranked against each other.

The academic rankings of the universities within the major conferences (ACC, Big12, Big10, Pac12, SEC) are available.

The 2017 rankings will be available in August.

Notes:
  • It is possible for universities to be ranked higher/lower than one another depending on the filter set.
  • Conference averages are based on the top 8 schools in the conference.
  • Public Schools are highlighted
  • Clicking on the university's seal icon will take you to the university's website.

Ranking Fields

Rank - Overall rank based on the average of the ranking fields (Scores, Difficulty, Smartest, Brainpower, Faculty and Research).

Scores - SAT & ACT scores. The university's test scores are corrected for dropout rate when score level is Good, Excellent or Elite. This will slightly boost scores for highly competitive schools.

Difficulty - Academic rigor is estimated based on how difficult it is to get an "A" at the university. An estimated GPA at the university is calculated for the average US Student. University grade inflation, average GPA, and STEM density are factors.

Smartest - University that can field the highest scoring students based on the average US University size. Higher Smartest Rank = "Smartest for the Average University"

Brainpower - The average "smartest" rank using 5 reference populations (CalTech, MIT, Stanford, GaTech and Berkeley). Higher Brainpower Rank = "Higher Density of Smart Students". The university ranked higher can mathematically field 'X' number of smarter students than universities ranked below them.

Faculty - Ranking based on number of % of faculty with awards and academy membership.

Research - Ranking is achieved by iteratively ranking the average of 3 research metrics (r-pop, r-stem, r-other ). The lowest ranked college is then removed and the new set is re-ranked. The result is the schools with potentially the strongest research environments per student bubble up to the top regardless of size or research budget.

  • r-pop - Average research spending for student population
  • r-stem - STEM research spending
  • r-other - Other/Medical/Health research spending

Salary ROI - "Salary Return on Investment" is not used in the overall ranking but is provided for additional information. Using the undergraduate average starting and mid-career salaries, the rank is based on a 20yr salary accumulation (with raises) minus the cost of a 4 year education at the university. Salaries are normalized across the country using the average COLA for the university's geo-economic region (7 regions total). The COLA effect is diminished by the level of the university. Elite, Excellent and Good universities have a greater distribution of graduates across the country and a diminishing COLA effect. The resultant value would be the graduate's spending potential over the 20yr period.

Overall ROI - "Overall Return on Investment" is not used in the overall ranking but is provided for additional information. The average of Overall Rank and Salary ROI. This would be the "Best academic bang for the buck". Colleges that produce the best education, at the best price, with the best return will be ranked higher.

Color Key - ranks are colorized as follows 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 50 100

The 2016 University Academic Rankings

Ivy League (Average)

2016 University Academic Rankings
«»
The Ivy League is a collegiate athletic conference comprising sports teams from eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group. The eight institutions are Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale University. The term Ivy League has connotations of academic excellence, selectivity in admissions, and social elitism.

While the term was in use as early as 1933, it only became official after the formation of the NCAA Division I athletic conference in 1954. Seven of the eight schools were founded during the United States colonial period; the exception is Cornell, which was founded in 1865. Ivy League institutions account for seven of the nine Colonial Colleges chartered before the American Revolution, the other two being Rutgers University and College of William & Mary.

Ivy League schools are generally viewed as some of the most prestigious, and are ranked among the best universities worldwide. All eight universities place in the top fifteen of the U.S. News & World Report 2016 university rankings, including the top four schools and five of the top nine. U.S. News has named a member of the Ivy League as the best national university in each of the past sixteen years ending with the 2016 rankings: Princeton nine times, Harvard twice and the two schools tied for first five times.

Undergraduate enrollments range from about 4,000 to 14,000, making them larger than those of a typical private liberal arts college and smaller than a typical public state university. Total enrollments, including graduate students, range from approximately 6,100 at Dartmouth to over 20,000 at Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, and Penn. Ivy League financial endowments range from Brown's $3 billion to Harvard's $36.4 billion, the largest financial endowment of any academic institution in the world.

Ivy League universities have some of the largest university financial endowments in the world, which allows the universities to provide many resources for their academic programs and research endeavors. As of 2014, Harvard University has an endowment of $36.4 billion. Additionally, each university receives millions of dollars in research grants and other subsidies from federal and state governments.

Brown University1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence PlantationsBaptist, founding charter promises "no religious tests" and "full liberty of conscience"

Note: Six of the eight Ivy League universities consider their founding dates to be simply the date that they received their charters and thus became legal corporations with the authority to grant academic degrees. Harvard University uses the date that the legislature of the Massachusetts Bay Colony formally allocated funds for the creation of a college. Harvard was chartered in 1650, although classes had been conducted for approximately a decade by then. The University of Pennsylvania initially considered its founding date to be 1750; this is the year which appears on the first iteration of the university seal. Later in Penn's early history, the university changed its officially recognized founding date to 1749, which was used for all of the nineteenth century, including a centennial celebration in 1849. In 1899, Penn's board of trustees formally adopted a third founding date of 1740, in response to a petition from Penn's General Alumni Society. Penn was chartered in 1755, the same year collegiate classes began. "Religious affiliation" refers to financial sponsorship, formal association with, and promotion by, a religious denomination. All of the schools in the Ivy League are private and not currently associated with any ... [more on wikipedia]

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Ivy League (Average)", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0

Top Ten All Nonivy Universities

Ivy League Details
Common Questions...

What are the academic rankings for Ivy League (Average)?

1. number - for Academics.

2. number 20 for ROI (Return on Investment).

What universities are similar to Ivy League (Average)?

1. Northwestern University

2. Stanford University

3. University of Pennsylvania

4. University of Chicago

5. Columbia University in the City of New York

6. Washington University in St Louis

7. Vanderbilt University


National Academic Rankings

(summary of all ranking placements)

Ivy League National Academic Rankings


Peer Universities / Similar Universities

(mathematically similar student body, size, academics, stem, salary... etc)

Ivy League Peer Universities, Similar Universities to Ivy League



Academic Peer Universities / Similar Academics

(mathematically similar academics)

Ivy League Academic Peer Universities, Similar Academic Universities to Ivy League