UCLA, USC tied at 23rd in national college rankings

UCLA tied with USC for the second year in a row in the U.S. News & World Report best national university rankings, with both schools ranked 23rd in the magazine’s list released today.

Carnegie Mellon, the University of Virginia and Wake Forest University also placed 23rd in the rankings, which are based on a school’s acceptance rates, tuition, class sizes and the average debt graduates have, among other factors, according to the magazine’s website.

This year, the magazine changed how it scored universities to better reflect how college admissions work and to give more weight to retention and graduation rates.

For example, the magazine did not value students’ high school class rankings as much as it had previously because fewer high schools include class rankings in their transcripts currently.

UCLA and USC moved up one spot in the rankings from last year, but the magazine’s scoring changes did not significantly affect the rankings of top schools overall.

The same schools as last year ranked in the top 10 national universities, though the placement of some of the schools shifted.

Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Stanford took the top five spots, respectively. UC Berkeley came in 20th place this year and is the top-ranked public university.

Other California public colleges such as UC Davis, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine were also ranked among the top 50 universities.

Compiled by Amanda Schallert, Bruin senior staff.