Top United States Universities 2024

I compiled an aggregate of the top universities in the world a year ago. We shall now see what has changed for the United States.

I used eight different resources for rankings.

• US News
• Washington Monthly
• Top Universities
• Times Higher Education
• Round Ranking
• Center for World University Rankings
• Niche
• Forbes

A university must be listed in at least seven of the eight rankings to be considered. I then removed the MAX and MIN values to create an average score.

RK	University	AVG	MIN	MAX
1	Harvard University	3.0	1	9
2	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	3.6	1	4
3	Stanford University	3.8	1	4
4	Princeton University	6.4	1	10
5	Yale University	8.2	1	9
6	University of Pennsylvania	9.0	4	10
7	Columbia University	11.6	6	12
8	Cornell University	15.8	7	22
9	Johns Hopkins University	16.8	9	24
10	California Institute of Technology	18.2	2	47
11	University of California, Berkeley	18.4	4	47
12	University of Chicago	19.4	5	32
13	Duke University	20.4	6	UR
14	Northwestern University	21.0	8	31
15	University of California, Los Angeles	21.2	7	30
16	University of Michigan	25.6	13	23
17	Brown University	29.6	9	43
18	University of California, San Diego	31.4	20	65
19	University of Washington	33.2	14	60
20	Vanderbilt University	33.8	14	49
21	Washington University in St. Louis	36.0	11	40
22	University of Southern California	36.8	14	47
23	Carnegie Mellon University	37.4	14	59
24	Dartmouth College	39.8	8	49
25	New York University	40.4	15	105
26	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	41.6	17	49
27	University of Wisconsin – Madison	42.2	11	59
28	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	42.2	17	50
29	University of California, Davis	43.2	21	75
30	Georgetown University	44.6	12	75
31	Georgia Institute of Technology	45.2	21	78
32	University of Texas at Austin	45.6	19	87
33	Rice University	46.8	9	95
34	University of Florida	50.0	22	45
35	Boston University	53.2	18	77
36	University of Notre Dame	53.4	12	65
37	University of Virginia	55.4	26	UR
38	Emory University	56.4	20	66
39	University of Minnesota	60.6	27	94
40	Purdue University	64.6	27	79
41	University of California, Santa Barbara	65.4	24	84
42	Ohio State University	66.4	32	72
43	Texas A&M University	69.2	32	79
44	University of Maryland, College Park	70.0	34	93
45	Tufts University	70.6	24	99
46	University of California, Irvine	71.2	34	71
47	Michigan State University	71.8	33	86
48	Rutgers University	82.8	34	UR
49	University of Rochester	84.0	26	143
50	Indiana University	86.6	52	102

Top-20?

When you look at college rankings, you hear much about the Top-20 schools.

There is no Top-20.

Below is a tier ranking based on average scores. Public schools are in bold.

S Tier: Harvard, MIT, Stanford
A Tier: Princeton, Yale, Penn, Columbia
B Tier: Cornell, Johns Hopkins, CalTech, UC Berkeley, Chicago, Duke, Northwestern, UCLA, Michigan
C Tier: Brown, UC San Diego, Washington, Vanderbilt, WashU, USC, CMU, Dartmouth, NYU, UNC, Wisconsin, UIUC, UC Davis, Georgetown, GA Tech, Texas, Rice, Florida, Boston, Notre Dame, Virginia, Emory
D Tier: Minnesota, Purdue, UC Santa Barbara, OSU, Texas A&M, Maryland, Tufts, UC Irvine, MSU

There is a Top-3, Top-7, and Top-16.

Then, 22 schools claim to be Top-20. Finally, nine universities round out the Top-47.