College Rankings | Penn took sole possession of fourth place in the latest college rankings by U.S. News & World Report, following Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. The magazine bases its annual list of the country’s top schools on criteria such as average freshman-retention rate, student-faculty ratio, alumni giving, SAT scores, and percentage of classes with fewer than 20 students.
Penn came in fifth place in 2003. The last time it ascended to fourth place, in 2002, it shared that ranking with Caltech, Duke, MIT, and Stanford.
This year Duke, MIT, and Stanford trailed Penn in fifth place, followed by Caltech in eighth place, and Columbia and Dartmouth in ninth place.
In other ranking news, Wharton’s undergraduate business program was named number one in the country by the magazine. —S.F.
