UVA up one spot in U.S. News public rankings

By Sarah Lindenfeld Hall October 11, 2024

Old Cabell Hall — Erin Edgerton / UVA Communications

While criticism continues to swirl around U.S. News & World Report’s popular college rankings, the digital publication has made few big changes to the methodology behind its 2025 list—and UVA’s rank stayed about the same.

Among national universities, Virginia stayed at No. 24, tied with Emory and Georgetown. Among public universities, UVA moved up one spot to No. 4, jockeying for top honors with the same four institutions as usual.

UVA comes in behind No. 1 University of California, Los Angeles, and No. 2 University of California, Berkeley, which tied for No. 1 last year. The University of Michigan remained at No. 3, and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and UVA switched spots in this year’s rankings as UNC moved down to No. 5.

Among the top public universities, UVA had the highest graduation rates for all students, including low-income students. UVA also boasted the highest percentage of full-time faculty members.

For the second consecutive year, U.S. News also named UVA the No. 3 Best Value school among public universities, behind UNC and the University of Idaho.

In the past, U.S. News has updated its methodologies to address criticism that the rankings place too much emphasis on a university’s reputation. However, this year’s methodology is largely the same as last year; the publication did remove graduation rates for first-generation students from its methodology because of data limitations.

The rankings come amid new research that raises questions about their relevance. In a September 2024 analysis of several popular rankings, researchers found that they can be misleading because methodologies are unclear; data quality is inconsistent; and some critical factors are highly subjective.

In other rankings, UVA was No. 14 among the top public universities in the Wall Street Journal ranking. Forbes recently placed UVA on a list of “new Ivies,” defined as “the 10 public universities and 10 ascendant private ones turning out the smart, driven graduates craved by employers of all types.” Money Magazine’s Best College rankings awarded UVA 4.5 stars out of five.