YU Ties for 66th Place in U.S. News Ranking

The U.S. News and World Report released its 2017 college rankings today, ranking Yeshiva University 66th among national universities with an overall score of 58%. The ranking is a significant downgrade from the 2016 and 2015 rankings, which placed Yeshiva at 52nd and 48th, respectively. The report also ranked YU 49th among best value schools.

Rankings for large colleges in the United States are based on many data categories that are meant to reflect each school’s “student body, its faculty and its financial resources, along with outcome measures that signal how well the institution educates students.” Another important input, which may seem out of place for a community-specific school like YU, is the rankings of high school counselor ratings. According to U.S. News, “guidance counselors from a nationwide sampling of public high schools in the U.S. News Best High Schools rankings that were gold, silver or bronze medal winners, as well as from the largest private independent schools nationwide” were asked to rate universities on a scale of 1 to 5 or to mark “don’t know” if they are unfamiliar with a particular college. The average of the results from the last three years of surveys rendered the high school counselor reputation score that was used in this ranking.

Other salient statistics reported by U.S. News about Yeshiva University include a 90% freshmen retention rate for 2015, which shows high student satisfaction. The student-to-teacher ratio is reported at 7:1. According to the report, applicants needing financial aid had, on average, 88% of their scholarship needs met.

College rankings are a popular means of helping prospective students decide among undergraduate programs. The U.S. News and World Report is among the most widely consulted ranking service. Kiplinger, another popular ranking report, pegged Yeshiva at 32nd for best value in private colleges last year.