# School  #Svys Score 1 Dartmouth College   30 82.1% 2 Yale University   30 81.4% 3 University of Chicago   47 80.6% 4 Harvey Mudd College   36 80.4% 5 Brown University   92 78.2% 6 Princeton University   31 77.4% 7 University of Notre Dame   35 77.1% 8 Stanford University   38 76.7% 9 Massachusetts Institute of Technology   89 75.7% 10 Georgetown University   45 75.4% 11 Washington University in St. Louis   44 75.3% 12 Johns Hopkins University   61 74.4% 13 Cornell University   75 73.8% 14 University of Pennsylvania   47 73.8% 15 Columbia University in the City of New York   34 73.6% 16 Brigham Young University   29 73.5% 17 Harvard University   41 73.5% 18 University of California -- Los Angeles   49 73.4% 19 Kalamazoo College   42 73.3% 20 University of Virginia   58 73.1% 21 Carnegie Mellon University   42 72.9% 22 Vanderbilt University   47 72.5% 23 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute   64 72.2% 24 Bryn Mawr College   29 72.2% 25 Colgate University   46 72.1% 26 Mount Holyoke College   32 72.0% 27 Bucknell University   29 71.7% 28 College of William and Mary   86 71.5% 29 Northwestern University   59 71.5% 30 University of Michigan Ann Arbor   171 71.3% 31 Tulane University   38 71.2% 32 Purdue University   33 69.5% 33 Texas A&M University at College Station   70 69.5% 34 University of California -- Santa Barbara   35 69.4% 35 University of California -- Berkeley   83 69.4% 36 Brandeis University   40 69.1% 37 Tufts University   32 68.7% 38 University of Texas -- Austin   63 68.4% 39 University of Illinois -- Urbana Champaign   78 68.2% 40 University of Wisconsin -- Madison   57 67.5% 41 Fordham University   43 67.4% 42 Case Western Reserve University   41 67.3% 43 University of Southern California   77 66.7% 44 Wake Forest University   30 66.5% 45 New York University   87 66.5% 46 State University of New York/Binghamton   58 66.3% 47 Clemson University   46 66.2% 48 Ohio State University Columbus   32 65.6% 49 University of Rochester   45 65.3% 50 Baylor University   37 65.2%

About StudentsReview's Criteria for the top 50 'schools to be aspired to' is: 25% - Educational Quality 20% - Innovation 20% - Student Body (reflected by ACT & SAT) 10% - Academic Success is based upon 'understanding' 10% - Would Return (Overall Experience) 5% - Mind Use/Challenge 5% - University Funding Use 5% - Social The rationale behind the rankings & weightings is as follows: Educational Quality  Educational Quality accumulates many factors — the effectiveness of the coursework, professors' effort levels, opportunities outside the classroom, how will the information “sticks”, the organization of the courses, how confident the students feel with the material after the courses. Innovation  Innovation is the conversion of educational knowledge into new opportunities, and new ways of doing things.  Pure education can become outdated, but teaching a student how and encouraging their creativity and innovation will provide them with returns for the rest of their lives. Student Body (reflected by ACT & SAT)  In “schools to be aspired to”, as much of the learning takes place from the fellow students as it does from the faculty.  Student Body captures this, at least partially, through ACT & SAT scores, where the students were ambitious enough to insure that a standardized test score were as high as possible, to attend an institution with other ambitous students. Academic Success is based upon 'understanding'  This is fundamentally important.  In a world obsessed with grades, it is imperative that any educational institution insure that the grades it gives, the metrics, and evaluations are clear and appropriate to the student's mastery.  Many schools stake their reputation on grades, and their abilities to make qualified, educated, and ambitious people either fail out, or do poorly — because then it artificially seems as though the education is difficult.  This does an enormous disservice to students and their families, who invest and save their entire lives to help increase the opportunities of their children, where the institution then takes their money on that promise, then diminishes those opportunities to build their own reputation.  To either the successful or naive observer, it may seem that grades are a direct reflection of a student's own performance, but they are not.  Curving policies, “fairness” assertions, and forced fail-out rates enforce something entirely different.  The sad part is that because of the number of years this occurs over for the student, and peoples' abilities to “self-blame”, that the failure on the part of the institution to understand the purpose of its own education, and to act in its students' interests is totally overlooked. Students attend college for an education, and an increase in opportunities.  This measures how well those opportunities and success follow from the student's own efforts and understanding. Would Return (Overall Experience)  All things stated, would the students choose to return?  This blanket captures things that all of our ratings did not, or could not capture.  Is there some unknown factor affecting why students would not return? Mind Use/Challenge  To force students to grow, to achieve potentials beyond what they originally considered, the coursework must be CHALLENGING. University Funding Use  While many schools may argue this, University Funding, from the prospective of the students is meant to be used for 2 things: Improving immediate conditions on campus for the CURRENT CUSTOMER BASE, and in increasing reputation so that the VALUE of the physical degree is grows over time.  A growing reputation means that doors will continue to open throughout your life due to the “Name” on your degree. Social  In highly challenging institutions, it becomes more important than ever to have an active social life — not only as a support network (very important), but because the social life helps facilitate a highly valuable network with other ambitious, intelligent people.  Just as much as the reputation opens doors, so does your network of friends and colleagues. We did not stratify by research institutions because we felt that while research institutions may present different opportunities than liberal arts, the education provided to undergraduates is not necessarily better, worse, or even that different, and many prospective students consider them all nearly equally when choosing where to apply. Note: There is no separation by department/major to show relative strengths at this time. Filtering and Analysis To find out how the data analysis was performed for the 2005 New Years Day OFFICIAL Rankings, including filtering, invalidity, weighting, distribution matching, and inherent biases, please go to 2005 NYD Rankings Explained.