The magazine U.S. News and World Report recently issued its annual rankings of the best colleges and universities in the United States. In addition to its rankings of the best national universities and liberal arts colleges, the magazine ranks regional colleges and universities and also the nation’s women’s colleges.
Among the country’s leading liberal arts colleges, Wellesley College in Massachusetts tied for seventh place with Claremont McKenna College and Pomona College (both in Claremont, California), behind only Williams College, Amherst College, the U.S. Naval Academy, Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, Bowdoin College in Maine, and the U.S. Air Force Academy. This is Wellesley’s same ranking from last year, and a small decrease from two years ago when it was tied for fifth place.
Barnard College in New York City and Smith College in Massachusetts tied for 13th place with six other liberal arts institutions: Davidson College in North Carolina, Grinnell College in Iowa, Hamilton College in New York, Middlebury College in Vermont, Vassar College in New York, and Wesleyan University in Connecticut. The two women’s colleges were both tied for 14th place in last year’s list.
Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts was the next highest ranked women’s college, at 29th place, followed by Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, which was tied for 30th place with three other institutions. The other two women’s colleges included the country’s top 50 liberal arts institutions were Scripps College in Claremont, California and Spelman College in Atlanta, which were both tied with five other schools for 37th place.