America East Institutions Ranked Among U.S. News & World Report's Best Colleges - AmericaEast.com
Four America East institutions rank among the top 100 national universities in the country according to U.S. News & World Report, which released its annual Best College Rankings on Wednesday. Only the Ivy League has more schools ranked in the top 100 among non-FBS conferences.
Additionally, UMBC has been recognized as the top up-and-coming school in the country for the fourth straight year and four other conference members also rank among the nation's top 157 national universities. All nine America East institutions are ranked in at least one category.
"These highly-respected rankings support our tenet that America East's member institutions are among the best academic institutions in the country," said America East Commissioner Amy Huchthausen.
Boston University led the conference's top-100 schools, ranking 51st. Binghamton University (89), Stony Brook University (92) and University of Vermont (92) also ranked in the top 100. Four other America East schools were slotted in the top 160 with University of New Hampshire (106), University at Albany (131), University of Maine (156) and UMBC (160) all receiving high marks.
All seven America East members that are public institutions were listed among the country's top 100 public universities with Binghamton leading the way at 37th, followed by Stony Brook (40), Vermont (40), UNH (51), Albany (65), Maine (83) and UMBC (87).
In other categories, University of Hartford checked in at No. 79 in the North regional rankings and UMBC also earned the No. 8 place for best undergraduate teaching on top of being named the top up-and-coming school (along with George Mason University), which honors schools that are making the most promising and innovative changes in the areas of academics, faculty, and student life.
To rank colleges and universities, U.S. News and World Report first assigns schools to a group of their peers, based on the basic categories developed by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 2006. Those in the national universities group are the American universities that offer a wide range of undergraduate majors as well as master’s and doctoral degrees; many strongly emphasize research.
In each category, data on up to 16 indicators of academic excellence are gathered from each school and tabulated. Schools are ranked within categories by their total weighted score.