Six Texas colleges and universities made the top 100 in U.S. News and World Report’s annual college rankings, which were released Monday.
Rice University ranked the highest of the Texas schools at No. 17, right behind UCLA and before Dartmouth College. The University of Texas at Austin ranked the second-highest, at 32, ahead of Georgia Tech.
Texas A&M University ranked at 47. Southern Methodist University in Dallas tied at number 89 with three other schools: Fordham University in New York, Temple University in Philadelphia and University of South Florida in Tampa.
Baylor University in Waco was ranked number 93, and Texas Christian University helped round out the top 100, hitting number 98.
The University of Houston was No. 133 in the rankings, up 48 spots from No. 181 one year ago.
U.S. News said this year it made refinements to its rankings formula by dropping five factors and modifying the weight of others, as well as introducing new ones.
“We increased the emphasis on how often schools’ students from all socioeconomic backgrounds earned degrees and took advantage of information on graduate outcomes that was not available until recently.” the publication said in its methodology.
Some of its modified measures include academic quality, graduate outcomes, campus culture, strength in specific majors, and financial aid offered. Its eliminated rankings were class size, the proportion of a school’s faculty with terminal degrees, alumni giving rate, the proportion of graduates borrowing and high school class standing.
“In short, the rankings should be used as a tool for discovering the best fit schools; combined with personal considerations and additional resources,” U.S. News said.
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