USC ranks in top 25 of 2018 college rankings

Katlyn Lee | Daily Trojan

USC ranked 21st in the annual college rankings from the U.S. News and World Report, which were released on Tuesday. The University moved up two positions on the list from last year.

USC shares the 21st position in the 2018 ranking with UCLA, Emory University and UC Berkeley.

In addition to the overall ranking, USC is ranked 40th among the schools for best value and is the fifth best college for veterans.

This year’s freshman class is the most diverse class in school history, according to statistics released earlier this year. In the U.S. News and World Report ranking, USC was fourth in economic diversity.

Sixteen percent of USC’s newest class is composed of first-generation college students and over two-thirds are students of color, according to USC News.

This year’s acceptance rate also decreased from 18 percent to 16.5 percent from last year.

“They are hearing about the quality education and what the USC experience could be all about,” said Emily Sandoval, the director for residential education, in August. “This also includes the residential experience, and the experience of being at a school with such incredible school spirit.”

U.S. News and World Report said it is based on a holistic analysis of factors such as location, range of academic pursuits, activities and availability of financial aid. With this information, rankings are finalized and compared among national universities.

The top five universities in the rankings were Princeton University, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, Yale, Columbia University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University. Chicago and Yale tied for third, while Columbia, MIT and Stanford tied for fifth.

According to U.S. News and World Report website, “the organization’s formula uses exclusively statistical quantitative and qualitative measures that education experts have proposed as reliable indicators of academic quality.”

The rankings will be released and updated on an annual basis moving forward.