Top 100 Colleges in the United States
Higher Education Articles January 28, 2013There are several highly rated private and public universities and colleges throughout the country. Amherst College, Williams College, Yale University, Princeton University and Harvard University feature among the best schools in the United States. In this article, we will take a closer look at these schools and list several other high-ranked U.S. colleges.
Amherst College – Amherst, Massachusetts
This is a privately-owned residential school that is ranked among the three best liberal arts educational institutions in the United States (source: U.S. News & World Report). The school typically offers undergraduate courses, with Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree programs offered in thirty-six fields that include women’s and gender studies as well as American studies. Small class sizes distinguish the school that has an exceptional faculty to student ratio of 1:8. Students at Amherst are also allowed to enroll into courses at one or more of the other schools belonging to the Five Colleges consortium; the other four member institutions are Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, Hampshire College and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Williams College – Williamstown, Massachusetts
Like Amherst College, Williams College is also a privately-owned residential school that consistently features among the three best liberal arts colleges in the United States as rated by the U.S. News & World Report. Again, as in the case of Amherst, the predominant focus of this school is on the bachelor degree programs, with 2,000 students enrolled in undergraduate programs in sciences, social sciences and humanities, apart from art history and development economics. Students of art history have the opportunity to work closely with the Williams College Museum of Art. Being a liberal arts college, Williams College has small class sizes; learning is experiential at the school that also has need-blind admissions. The college is committed to satisfying the demonstrated financial need of every enrolled student.
Yale University – New Haven, Connecticut
Founded in 1701, Yale University consistently features among the three best schools in the country as rated by the U.S. News & World Report. In keeping up with its reputation as a leading research university of the country, Yale University has recently started a renovation and construction project aimed at revamping scientific facilities including research laboratories. The project is expected to cost about one billion dollars. The college comprises of a graduate college, an undergraduate school, and several professional schools; those include schools dedicated to education in law, nursing, medicine and architecture. The famous Yale center for British Art and the Peabody Museum of Natural History are also located within the university premises.
Harvard University – Cambridge, Massachusetts
When Harvard University started in 1636, Massachusetts was just a colony. Known to be the nation’s oldest postsecondary institution, it consistently featured among the three best national American universities as rated by U.S. News & World Report. With more than 20,000 students enrolled, this privately owned Ivy League university comprises of Harvard College, a bachelor degree institution alongside eleven graduate and professional schools that offer professional degree programs as well as master and doctoral degree programs. The business school, the medical school and the law school feature among the graduate colleges and are highly rated.
Princeton University – Princeton, New Jersey
This is the fourth oldest university in the country that ranks consistently among the three best national universities in the United States as rated by U.S. News & World Report. This privately owned Ivy League institution is famous for housing many best-equipped research libraries in the country containing more than six million cataloged books apart from a broad range of other materials. Bachelor, master and doctoral degree programs are offered at the university in a wide range of fields including diverse subjects such as physics and architecture.
List of 100 Leading Colleges in the United States
| School Name | Total Student Enrollment | Location |
| American University | 11,684 | Washington, D.C. |
| Amherst College | 1,697 | Amherst, Massachusetts |
| Auburn University | 24,530 | Auburn, Alabama |
| Barnard College | 2,359 | New York, New York |
| Baylor University | 14,541 | Waco, Texas |
| Boston College | 14,836 | Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts |
| Boston University | 31,766 | Boston, Massachusetts |
| Brandeis University | 5,327 | Waltham, Massachusetts |
| Brigham Young University | 34,244 | Provo, Utah |
| Brown University | 8,318 | Providence, Rhode Island |
| Bryn Mawr College | 1,745 | Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania |
| California Institute of Technology | 2,126 | Pasadena, California |
| Carnegie Mellon University | 10,875 | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| Case Western Reserve University | 9,814 | Cleveland, Ohio |
| Clemson University | 18,317 | Clemson, South Carolina |
| College of New Jersey | 6,949 | Ewing, New Jersey |
| College of the Ozarks | 1,334 | Point Lookout, Missouri |
| College of William and Mary | 7,892 | Williamsburg, Virginia |
| Columbia University | 23,196 | New York, New York |
| Cornell University | 20,273 | Ithaca, New York |
| Dartmouth College | 5,848 | Hanover, New Hampshire |
| Davidson College | 1,668 | Davidson, North Carolina |
| Depauw University | 2,298 | Greencastle, Indiana |
| Drexel University | 21,537 | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Duke University | 14,060 | Durham, North Carolina |
| Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University | 5,062 | Daytona Beach, Florida |
| Emory University | 12,755 | Atlanta, Georgia |
| Florida State University | 38,682 | Tallahassee, Florida |
| George Washington University | 25,116 | Washington, District of Columbia |
| Georgetown University | 15,318 | Washington, District of Columbia |
| Georgia Institute of Technology | 19,413 | Atlanta, Georgia |
| Harding University | 6,446 | Searcy, Arkansas |
| Harvard University | 26,496 | Cambridge, Massachusetts |
| Haverford College | 1,169 | Haverford, Pennsylvania |
| Indiana University – Bloomington | 40,354 | Bloomington, Indiana |
| Johns Hopkins University | 19,758 | Baltimore, Maryland |
| Lehigh University | 6,994 | Bethlehem, Pennsylvania |
| Marquette University | 11,633 | Milwaukee, Wisconsin |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 10,299 | Cambridge, Massachusetts |
| Michigan State University | 46,510 | East Lansing, Michigan |
| Middlebury College | 2,455 | Middlebury, Vermont |
| Mount Holyoke College | 2,241 | South Hadley, Massachusetts |
| New York University | 42,189 | New York, New York |
| Northeastern University | 25,837 | Boston, Massachusetts |
| Northwestern University | 19,291 | Evanston, Illinois |
| Ohio State University | 53,715 | Columbus, Ohio |
| Oklahoma State University | 22,995 | Stillwater, Oklahoma |
| Pennsylvania State University | 44,406 | University Park, Pennsylvania |
| Pepperdine University | 7,614 | Malibu, California |
| Pomona College | 1,532 | Claremont, California |
| Princeton University | 7,330 | Princeton, New Jersey |
| Rice University | 5,357 | Houston, Texas |
| Rollins College | 3,259 | Winter Park, Florida |
| Salisbury University | 7,868 | Salisbury, Maryland |
| Stanford University | 17,833 | Stanford, Californias |
| Stevens Institute of Technology | 5,595 | Hoboken, New Jersey |
| Swarthmore College | 1,490 | Swarthmore, Pennsylvania |
| Syracuse University | 19,366 | Syracuse, New York |
| Temple University | 35,490 | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Texas A&M University – College Station | 48,039 | College Station, Texas |
| Truman State University | 5,880 | Kirksville, Missouri |
| Tufts University | 10,030 | Medford, Massachusetts |
| Tulane University | 10,737 | New Orleans, Louisiana |
| University of Alabama | 27,014 | Tuscaloosa, Alabama |
| University of Arizona | 38,057 | Tucson, Arizona |
| University of Arkansas | 19,194 | Fayetteville, Arkansas |
| University of California – Berkeley | 35,396 | Berkeley, California |
| University of California – Los Angeles | 38,220 | Los Angeles, California |
| University of Chicago | 14,788 | Chicago, Illinois |
| University of Colorado – Boulder | 32,469 | Boulder, Colorado |
| University of Delaware | 20,500 | Newark, Delaware |
| University of Florida | 51,474 | Gainesville, Florida |
| University of Georgia | 34,180 | Athens, Georgia |
| University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign | 43,246 | Champaign, Illinois |
| University of Kansas | 29,365 | Lawrence, Kansas |
| University of Maryland – College Park | 37,000 | College Park, Maryland |
| University of Miami | 15,323 | Coral Gables, Florida |
| University of Michigan – Ann Arbor | 41,028 | Ann Arbor, Michigan |
| University of Minnesota – Twin Cities | 51,140 | Minneapolis, Minnesota |
| University of Nebraska – Lincoln | 23,573 | Lincoln, Nebraska |
| University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill | 28,567 | Chapel Hill, North Carolina |
| University of Notre Dame | 11,731 | Notre Dame, Indiana |
| University of Oklahoma | 26,140 | Norman, Oklahoma |
| University of Pennsylvania | 24,107 | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| University of Pittsburgh | 27,562 | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| University of Southern California | 33,747 | Los Angeles, California |
| University of Texas – Austin | 49,984 | Austin, Texas |
| University of Virginia | 24,541 | Charlottesville, Virginia |
| University of Washington | 39,675 | Seattle, Washington |
| University of Wisconsin – Madison | 41,620 | Madison, Wisconsin |
| Vanderbilt University | 12,093 | Nashville, Tennessee |
| Vassar College | 2,389 | Poughkeepsie, New York |
| Villanova University | 10,274 | Villanova, Pennsylvania |
| Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | 30,739 | Blacksburg, Virginia |
| Wake Forest University | 6,862 | Winston Salem, North Carolina |
| Washington University in St. Louis | 13,339 | St. Louis, Missouri |
| Wellesley College | 2,498 | Wellesley, Massachusetts |
| Willamette University | 2,637 | Salem, Oregon |
| Williams College | 2,072 | Williamstown, Massachusetts |
| Yale University | 10,192 | New Haven, Connecticut |
