Similar to my 2024 Post, To be included in the Top 26, a university must be ranked in the Top 60 of at least two lists: Top Universities, Appily, Niche, and Times Higher Education. Neither CollegeVine nor US News ranked Communication schools.
As these rankings can vary, I have changed the scoring to create a score. Each ranking gives you 20/RANK. So A first place ranking gives you 20 points. A fifth place finish gives you four points. This is controversial, but allows you to earn points for showing highly in a list and not at all in other lists.
| Rank | School | Score | Min | 2024 | DIFF |
| 1 | Harvard | 36.7 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2 | Stanford | 28.3 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| 3 | USC | 27.4 | 1 | 4 | -1 |
| 4 | MIT | 23.6 | 1 | 5 | -1 |
| 5 | Texas | 18.2 | 2 | 7 | -2 |
| 6 | Northwestern | 14.7 | 2 | 6 | 0 |
| 7 | UPenn | 12.1 | 5 | 3 | 4 |
| 8 | UC Berkeley | 9.3 | 4 | 11 | -3 |
| 9 | Michigan | 7.9 | 5 | 8 | 1 |
| 10 | UCLA | 7.4 | 6 | 9 | 1 |
| 11 | Columbia | 6.7 | 6 | 16 | -5 |
| 12 | Pomona | 6.7 | 4 | NR | NR |
| 13 | Cornell | 6.4 | 8 | 12 | 1 |
| 14 | NYU | 5.7 | 8 | 10 | 4 |
| 15 | Brown | 5.2 | 5 | 14 | 1 |
| 16 | Wisconsin | 5.1 | 10 | 13 | 3 |
| 17 | Florida | 4.6 | 5 | 21 | -4 |
| 18 | MSU | 4.2 | 9 | 18 | 0 |
| 19 | UNC | 4.2 | 10 | 15 | 4 |
| 20 | UChicago | 3.9 | 7 | NR | NR |
| 21 | Vanderbilt | 2.7 | 11 | 26 | -5 |
| 22 | Washington | 2.6 | 12 | 17 | 5 |
| 23 | UIUC | 2.4 | 19 | 29 | -6 |
| 24 | BostonU | 2.4 | 11 | 20 | 4 |
| 25 | WashU | 2.2 | 13 | NR | NR |
| 26 | Georgetown | 2.1 | 14 | 22 | 4 |
Biggest Gainers
Pomona qualifies for this list now and is our only Liberal Arts school in the rankings. The University of Chicago and Washington University also are able to make the rankings this year to put four Illinois/STL schools in the top 25.
Niche is a frustrating website as neither Harvard, MIT nor Columbia are included in their top 907 schools for Communications, which is laughable.
