2014 Rankings: MIT Sits at the Top

Aside from the first day of classes, no event signifies the start of another academic year better than U.S. News and World Report’s annual rankings of the United States’ best colleges and universities.

And similar to past years, MIT finds itself at or near the top in nearly every category, including overall rankings, in which the Institute is ranked seventh, and the top-ranked undergraduate engineering program, a position it has held for 25 consecutive years. (In the U.S. News graduate school rankings earlier this year, MIT was ranked first in nearly two dozen categories, including disciplines in the sciences and humanities.)

In addition to the U.S. News rankings, MIT was named the top university in the world by QS World University Rankings for the third consecutive year. QS is published by Quacquarelli Symonds, an organization specializing in education and study abroad, and their six-point ranking system relies heavily (40 percent) on academic reputation garnered from a global survey.

Adding even more to the rankings craze: Forbes listed MIT as the country’s fifth-best college and named the Institute in the top five in three sub-categories. MIT also ranked fifth in the Times Higher Education 2014 World University Rankings for the second consecutive year.

The strangest ranking? A recent photo gallery from CNBC that lists MIT as the sixth-best university for billionaire alumni.

A comprehensive list of where MIT stands in more than 30 categories is below. Share your thoughts on the latest wave of rankings in the comments below, or on Facebook and Twitter.

U.S. News and World Report Undergraduate Rankings National University Rankings: 7 Best Undergraduate Business Programs: 2 Entrepreneurship: 2 Finance: 4 Management: 8 Management Information Systems: 1 Production / Operations Management: 1 Quantitative Analysis: 1 Supply Chain Management / Logistics: 2 Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs: 1 Aerospace / Aeronautical / Astronautical: 1 Biomedical: 3 Chemical: 1 Civil: 7 Computer: 1 Electrical/Electronic/Communications: 1 Environmental/Environmental Health: 8 Materials: 1 Mechanical: 1 Engineering Science/Engineering Physics: 2 High school counselor rankings: 1 Best value schools: 5

U.S. News and World Report Graduate Rankings Best Business School: 5 Finance MBA: 5 Entrepreneurship MBA: 3 Information Systems MBA: 1 Production/Operations MBA: 1 Supply Chain/Logistics MBA: 1 Biology: 1 Chemistry: 1 Earth Sciences: 2 Mathematics: 1 Physics: 1 Economics: 1 Political Science: 8

QS World University Rankings Overall: 1 Academic reputation: 6 Employer reputation: 4 Faculty/student: 14 Citations per faculty: 10

Forbes Overall: 5 Private colleges: 5 Research universities: 3 Northeast: 4 Grateful grads: 13 Forbes financial grade: A+

The Times Higher Education Overall: 5 Overall score: 93/100 Teaching: 93/100 International outlook: 82/100 Industry income: 94/100 Research: 89/100 Citations: 100/100