The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings slotted Stanford (Calif.) University as the No. 1 university in 2016 in its inaugural rankings, followed by Cambridge-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Columbia University in New York City.
The WSJ/THE rankings place greater emphasis on students' postgraduate success and their own opinions on the quality of their education, compared with traditional rankings, which prioritize SAT scores of incoming freshman and the number of candidates who get rejected. The WSJ/THE rankings are based on 15 factors across four categories, including student outcomes (40 percent of score), the school's financial resources (30 percent), how well it engages students (20 percent) and the learning environment/degree of diversity (10 percent).
Here is a list of the top 10 universities in the U.S., according to the WSJ/THE rankings.
1. Stanford (Calif.) University
2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge)
3. Columbia University (New York City)
4. University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia)
5. Yale University (New Haven, Conn.)
6. Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.)
7. Duke University (Durham, N.C.)
8. Princeton (N.J.) University
9. CornellUniversity (Ithaca, N.Y.)
10. California Institute of Technology (Pasadena)