U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges Ranking

In 1983, U.S. News & World Report published its first "America's Best Colleges" report. The rankings have been compiled and published annually since 1985 and are the most widely quoted of their kind in the United States. These rankings are based upon data that U.S. News & World Report collects from each educational institution from an annual survey sent to each school. The rankings are also based upon opinion surveys of university faculties and administrators who do not belong to the schools.

The popularity of U.S. News & World Report's Best Colleges rankings is reflected in its 2014 release, which brought 2.6 million unique visitors and 18.9 million page views to usnews.com in one day. Traffic came from over 3,000 sites, including Facebook and Google. U.S. News & World Report continues to publish comprehensive college guides in book form. Robert Morse created the U.S. News Best Colleges rankings methodology, and continues to oversee its application as chief data strategist at U.S. News. In 2014, the Washington Post featured a profile of Morse, exploring his 30-year career with the publication. In October 2014, the U.S. News & World Report published its inaugural "Best Global Universities" rankings.Inside Higher Ed noted that the U.S. News is entering into the international college and university rankings area that is already "dominated by three major global university rankings", namely the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, the Academic Ranking of World Universities, and the QS World University Rankings. Robert Morse stated that "it's natural for U.S. News to get into this space." Morse also noted that the U.S. News "will also be the first American publisher to enter the global rankings space."

The magazine U.S. News & World Report's rankings are based upon information they collect from educational institutions via an annual survey, government and third party data sources, and school websites. It also considers opinion surveys of university faculty and administrators outside the school. Their college rankings were first published in 1983 and have been published in all years thereafter, except 1984.

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