But, it is still interesting to check out the list and see if your school made it on. The top three national universities, not surprisingly, were Princeton, Harvard, and Yale. My dear little Syracuse made the list at #52! Sorry, I couldn’t resist a shout out.

The top two liberal arts colleges were Williams and Amherst.

Curious as to how the rankings were decided? I was too.

“We identified eight types of programs associated with student success, including first-year experiences, learning communities, writing in the disciplines, senior capstone, study abroad, internships or cooperative education, opportunities for undergraduate research, and service learning. We asked college presidents, chief academic officers, and admissions deans to nominate up to 10 institutions with excellent examples of each.”

Interesting. My feeling: Read over the list, but take it in with a grain of salt, especially if you are still deciding on a college home. Choose the college where you feel most comfortable and happiest at, not just the one that is two notches higher than your other choice because of some miniscule detail.