USC moves up in rankings


USC now ranks as No. 23 on the U.S. News and World Report rankings of national universities released Tuesday, up from its ranking as No. 26 last year.

USC has risen 28 spots since 1991, when former President Steven B. Sample began his 19-year tenure as leader of the private university. USC is tied with Carnegie Mellon for the 23rd spot.

“USC’s rise in academic quality over the past two decades has been unprecedented, and this year’s rankings help confirm this,” said President C. L. Max Nikias in an interview with USC News. “But our goal is to continue our momentum — and even to escalate it — in order to make this one of the most productive and influential universities in an epoch of global change.”

The university currently ranks in between the University of California-Berkeley (No. 22) and the University of California-Los Angeles (No. 25)

Based on input from university leaders, admissions directors and high school counselors, the rankings report is released annually to indicate quality comparisons of universities across the nation.

The USC Marshall School of Business was also ranked as No. 10 nationally in professional schools and No. 4 in entrepreneurship.

4 replies
  1. JPA
    JPA says:

    Hey APJ,

    Thanks for the response. The thing is, I didn’t miss the point. Your response was exactly my point. Stanford had a relatively singular founding: starting with an 8,000+ acre donation of land, then later in its history receives billions in endowments from the likes of Hewlett and Packard. If USC, UCLA and Cal culled the top half of their respective student bodies and got rid of the bottom half (and had the endowment size of Stanford), it would not be surprising if the 3 schools moved up tremendously the rankings. A school like Stanford can entice a lot of top students by offering full scholarships, where as the others don’t quite have the resources for that. Hence, my conclusion that given the circumstances, USC, UCLA and Berkeley should be proud of their achievements. Fight On!

  2. APJ
    APJ says:

    Hey JPA, you and “we got in” are missing the point. Stanford, the Ivies, MIT, Caltech and schools of this caliber keep their population low so to perpetuate exclusivity. Besides, these aforementioned schools reject students who graduate top of their senior class; score near-perfect SATs; spread themselves thin with extracurriculars, etc.

    Oh yeah, Stanford and the Ivies got the highest concentration of billionaire alumni hence the far greater endowments…you know, Bill Gates, Silcon Valley tech magnates, the founder of Facebook, etc.?

  3. JPA
    JPA says:

    Hey “We Got In”,

    Let’s see Stanford double its student body to the sizes of USC, UCLA and Berkeley, and keep its current ranking intact. Kudos to USC, UCLA and Berkeley for their high rankings with an endowment much smaller than Stanford’s and with roughly twice the student body. Keep up the good work.

  4. We Got In
    We Got In says:

    Interestingly the article mentions the rankings of Cal and UCLA, but fails the mention the continually high rankings for the premiere university of the west…. Stanford University.

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