# School  #Svys Score 1 Dartmouth College   29 73.8% 2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology   87 73.3% 3 Harvey Mudd College   34 71.9% 4 Brown University   90 71.8% 5 University of Chicago   46 71.8% 6 Yale University   28 71.3% 7 Cornell University   73 71.2% 8 Princeton University   30 70.2% 9 University of Notre Dame   34 70.2% 10 University of California -- Los Angeles   48 70.1% 11 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute   62 70.1% 12 Stanford University   36 69.4% 13 University of Virginia   57 69.2% 14 University of Pennsylvania   46 69.2% 15 Johns Hopkins University   59 69.1% 16 Columbia University in the City of New York   32 68.9% 17 Washington University in St. Louis   42 68.6% 18 Carnegie Mellon University   38 68.4% 19 Vanderbilt University   45 68.4% 20 Georgetown University   42 68.1% 21 College of William and Mary   85 68.0% 22 Kalamazoo College   41 67.9% 23 University of Michigan Ann Arbor   169 67.9% 24 Brigham Young University   28 67.1% 25 Colgate University   44 66.8% 26 Texas A&M University at College Station   67 66.6% 27 Mount Holyoke College   30 66.3% 28 University of California -- Santa Barbara   33 66.2% 29 Northwestern University   56 65.9% 30 University of Texas -- Austin   61 65.8% 31 University of California -- Berkeley   80 65.4% 32 University of Illinois -- Urbana Champaign   76 65.4% 33 Harvard University   39 65.2% 34 University of Wisconsin -- Madison   55 65.0% 35 Fordham University   42 64.9% 36 Tulane University   37 64.6% 37 Case Western Reserve University   39 64.3% 38 Brandeis University   39 64.3% 39 State University of New York/Binghamton   53 64.2% 40 New York University   85 64.1% 41 University of Southern California   75 64.1% 42 Purdue University   31 63.9% 43 University of Rochester   43 63.1% 44 Tufts University   30 62.9% 45 LeTourneau University   49 62.6% 46 Clemson University   44 62.5% 47 Ohio State University Columbus   29 62.4% 48 Bob Jones University   71 62.2% 49 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill   44 62.0% 50 Bryn Mawr College   27 61.9%

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.