Earlier this year, I broke down the top universities. I have since discovered that new rankings come out in the fall, so I have updated the rankings for 2025.
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.
| University | 2025 | 2024 | AVG | MIN | MAX |
| MIT | 1 | 2 | 2.4 | 1 | 4 |
| Harvard | 2 | 1 | 3.4 | 1 | 8 |
| Stanford | 3 | 3 | 4.0 | 2 | 4 |
| Princeton | 4 | 4 | 7.2 | 1 | 10 |
| Yale | 5 | 5 | 8.8 | 2 | 11 |
| UPenn | 6 | 6 | 9.8 | 3 | 11 |
| Columbia | 7 | 7 | 11.2 | 5 | 13 |
| CalTech | 8 | 10 | 12.2 | 3 | 22 |
| Cornell | 9 | 8 | 14.6 | 7 | 21 |
| Johns Hopkins | 10 | 9 | 15.4 | 5 | 22 |
| UChicago | 11 | 12 | 18.6 | 8 | 35 |
| Northwestern | 12 | 14 | 19.4 | 6 | 34 |
| UC Berkeley | 13 | 11 | 19.8 | 5 | 42 |
| Duke | 14 | 13 | 20.6 | 6 | UR |
| UCLA | 15 | 15 | 22.0 | 11 | 65 |
| Michigan | 16 | 16 | 25.2 | 13 | 29 |
| Brown | 17 | 17 | 30.2 | 7 | 35 |
| Vanderbilt | 18 | 20 | 30.8 | 9 | 45 |
| WashU | 19 | 21 | 32.8 | 11 | 35 |
| UC San Diego | 20 | 18 | 34.4 | 20 | 64 |
| Dartmouth | 21 | 24 | 37.2 | 5 | 51 |
| Carnegie Mellon | 22 | 23 | 38.4 | 15 | 58 |
| USC | 23 | 22 | 38.4 | 21 | 46 |
| Washington | 24 | 19 | 38.6 | 16 | 62 |
| UNC | 25 | 26 | 38.8 | 19 | 35 |
| NYU | 26 | 25 | 39.0 | 13 | 64 |
| UIUC | 27 | 28 | 43.6 | 17 | 50 |
| Wisconsin | 28 | 27 | 44.6 | 12 | 56 |
| Georgia Tech | 29 | 31 | 46.8 | 21 | 56 |
| Georgetown | 30 | 30 | 47.0 | 13 | 72 |
| UC Davis | 31 | 29 | 48.6 | 26 | 63 |
| Emory | 32 | 38 | 49.0 | 20 | 54 |
| Rice | 33 | 33 | 49.4 | 8 | 87 |
| Florida | 34 | 34 | 51.0 | 26 | 44 |
| Notre Dame | 35 | 36 | 52.8 | 10 | 65 |
| Boston | 36 | 35 | 54.4 | 18 | 69 |
| Virginia | 37 | 37 | 54.4 | 24 | UR |
| Texas | 38 | 32 | 59.2 | 19 | UR |
| Minnesota | 39 | 39 | 60.0 | 25 | 97 |
| UC Irvine | 40 | 46 | 67.6 | 33 | 77 |
| Maryland | 41 | 44 | 70.0 | 39 | 82 |
| Tufts | 42 | 45 | 70.2 | 24 | 106 |
| Purdue | 43 | 40 | 71.0 | 25 | 68 |
| UC Santa Barbara | 44 | 41 | 71.4 | 27 | 94 |
| Ohio State | 45 | 42 | 74.0 | 32 | 92 |
| Texas A&M | 46 | 43 | 74.0 | 33 | 70 |
| Rochester | 47 | 49 | 76.2 | 29 | 102 |
| Michigan State | 48 | 47 | 79.0 | 32 | 98 |
| Rutgers | 49 | 48 | 81.4 | 33 | 110 |
| Boston College | 50 | 56 | 84.6 | 37 | 140 |
| George Washington | 51 | 70 | 87.8 | 28 | 100 |
Changes?
New Year. Same Schools.
The Top 50 schools are the same as in 2024, besides Boston College replacing Indiana (#55). I included George Washington at 51 because it was the only exciting story, moving up 19 spots.
Washington (-5) and Texas (-6) were the only schools to move at least five spots downwards.
Emory (6), UC Irvine (6), and Boston College (6) were the only schools to move at least five spots upwards.
M.I.T. did overtake Harvard to be #1, but the entire Top 10 is the same.
M.I.T., Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Yale, UPenn, and Columbia did not receive a single ranking below 13, making them the clear Top-7 schools.
