Brandeis remained ranked 42nd in the U.S. News and World Report Best National University rankings, not dropping for the first time in five years. It tied for 42nd place with Boston University, Case Western Reserve University, Tulane University and University of Wisconsin-Madison in the category of Best National Universities, according to the most recent U.S. News rankings.
In the 2021 edition, Brandeis tied for #42 with Boston University, Case Western Reserve University, University of Texas at Austin and University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the category of Best National Universities, according to the rankings. In the 2020 edition, Brandeis tied for #40, while in 2019, Brandeis ranked 35, tied with the Georgia Institute of Technology, according to the list of the previous rankings. In the previous three years, Brandeis ranked 34th. Brandeis’s highest ranking was in 2014, at 32nd place.
In this year’s ranking, Brandeis received an overall score of 73, a one-point increase from the previous year. The six-year graduation rate dropped by one percent to 88 percent from the previous year; the student-to-faculty ratio remained the same at 10:1, according to the ranking.
Brandeis ranked #31 in Best Undergraduate Teaching, an eight-place increase from the previous year, where it ranked 39th. It is tied with Yale University. In 2020, Brandeis placed 76th in Best Undergraduate Teaching in 2020, according to the ranking.
Brandeis also ranked #40 in the Best Value Schools category, up from last year’s ranking of 43rd. Brandeis increased its ranking in the Top Performers on Social Mobility category, going from #191 in 2021 to #143 in 2021. Brandeis ranked #138 in 2020 in the Social Mobility category, according to the prior ranking. It was no longer at the top of the list in the First-Year Experiences and the Undergraduate Research/Creative Projects categories.
A previous Hoot article includes a description of how the U.S. News and World Report ranks universities. In order to be in the National Universities category, a school has to have a wide range of programs for students and be focused on research. The quality is judged by 15 measures.
