Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University and the University of Virginia are among the nation’s best colleges, according to the country’s best-known rankings out today.
In its annual national rankings, U.S. News and World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges” ranked Georgetown and Virginia as tied as the 23rd best in the country.
Johns Hopkins is ranked 14th.
Virginia’s placement made it the second-highest-ranked public university in the nation.
The U.S. Naval Academy was ranked 20th on the list of best liberal arts colleges, the top-ranked public school in the category.
It was the first time service academies were ranked.
Princeton University, Harvard University and Yale University were the best in the country, according to the survey.
The magazine uses data including academic reputation, admission and graduation rates, and financial aid availability as criteria in ranking the schools.
Officials from Georgetown and Johns Hopkins said they were pleased with their placement but that rankings do not affect the way they educate students.
“These rankings are one measure of the school’s overall success,” Georgetown spokeswoman Julie Green Batille said. “We are always looking at way to improve the students’ overall experience regardless of its effect on the rankings.”
“It’s great to be considered among the top universities in the country, but we would never suggest that a student look at only these ranking when making a college decision,” Hopkins spokesman Dennis O’Shea said.
Christopher Nelson, president of St. John’s College in Annapolis and a critic of the rankings, has refused to participate in the survey for more than a decade.
“We think the rankings do a disservice to families. They limit choice by trying to pretend that all things can be measured on a single scale,” he told The Examiner. “We all know … that the place that might be best for one might not be best for another.
“There are many more important things that go into a college choice,” Nelson said.
O’Shea acknowledged the rankings were a double-edged sword. The rankings “add transparency to the process, in the sense that it bring students and parents information in an easily digestible way,” he said. “It also tends to make college choice look like it’s a quantitative decision. It just isn’t that.”
