After three years of sharing top-spot honors, U.S. News & World Report ranked Princeton alone the No. 1 university in the country. This is the seventh straight year Princeton has ranked first in the magazine's annual survey of "America's Best Colleges." Rival Harvard dropped to second place in this year's survey.
"We are pleased that our commitment to providing the highest quality undergraduate education continues to be recognized," University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt '96 said in a statement. The University is happy, she added, that the rankings continue to highlight "our innovations in financial aid."
Princeton ranked first for students graduating with the least debt and ranked third for best value, behind Caltech and Harvard. The magazine, which hits newsstands Monday, reported that 26 percent of Tigers graduated with debt, averaging $4,370. Caltech followed in second place, with 53 percent of students graduating with debt, averaging $5,395.
In the past several years, the University has launched "sweeping initiatives to make a Princeton education even more affordable," Cliatt said, highlighting the University's no-loan financial aid policy.
"Princeton has served as the model for financial aid reforms. More than half of the undergraduate student body is on financial aid, and almost 55 percent of the incoming class will receive aid."
Last year, Princeton also ranked first in the least-debt category, but apparently performed better than this year. Only 15 percent of students left Old Nassau owing money, which averaged $4,030. It isn't clear why the percentage has increased to 26 percent this year.
In the overall rankings, Yale was in third place while Stanford, Caltech, and MIT tied for fourth. The University of Pennsylvania, Duke, Dartmouth, Columbia and the University of Chicago rounded out the top 10.
Colleges across the country, including Princeton, have often criticized the U.S. News survey, charging that no such ranking can do justice to a school's individual characteristics. Several schools have refused to participate in the survey in previous years.
"It's important to note that no methodical ranking can capture an institution's individual distinctiveness," Cliatt said. "We encourage students to explore the many outstanding educational opportunities available to them to identify their best match, and one of the best ways to do this is by visiting campuses in person whenever possible."
Katherine Chi, director of Admissions Academy in Palo Alto, Calif., a firm which counsels students on their college applications, said in an email that her firm doesn't use national college rankings when they recommend schools for students.
"Our goal from the beginning is to find the right college fit, so we go through the process by focusing on student (and family) criteria, including everything from geographic location to student body character."
The only time the counselors reference U.S. News and World Report's ranking is when parents will only support their children attending a "top 50" or "top 100" university.
Julie Ball, college counselor at Sacred Heart Preparatory in Atheron, Calif., said that parents are often the ones paying more attention to the rankings, not students. She added that she does not like the way schools are ranked and does not pay attention to survey.
Chi agreed that students do not place a great emphasis on national rankings. "If it does come up as a significant factor, parents are usually the ones who are concerned and want to evaluate college rankings," she said.
When applying to colleges, Edie Lederman '09 promised herself she would not attend an Ivy League school, in part because of the hubbub surrounding the rankings. Then she wound up at Princeton.
"I think that [the ranks] imply a snobbish hierarchy, which I do not agree with, because I still think that you can get a decent education at a great number of schools which are not considered 'top notch,'" Lederman said in an email.
"It might not be an outstanding education with limitless resources available to you, but an education is only what you make of it."
With updates on Aug. 18.
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