Despite Dartmouth's increasingly competitive applicants and expanding campus, U.S. News and World Report remains firm -- for the sixth year in a row, Dartmouth ranked ninth in its "America's Best Colleges" guide.
In a rankings list that varies very little from last year's, Dartmouth is tied for ninth with Columbia University.
Harvard and Princeton Universities remain tied for first, with Yale University ranked third, the University of Pennsylvania ranked fourth, Duke and Stanford Universities tied for fifth and the California Institute of Technology tied with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at seventh. Cornell University ranked just out of the top 10, at 13, in a tie with Johns Hopkins University. Brown University was the lowest-ranked Ivy, at 15.
The only change in the top 10 from the 2005 list was MIT's fall from its previous tie at fifth with Duke and Stanford.
Ranked the second-highest Ivy in four-year graduation rates, Dartmouth came in eighth overall with a score of 88 percent.
In the category of Most Students Studying Abroad, an area in which Dartmouth traditionally excels, the College was the top-ranked Ivy and 25th-ranked school, with 58 percent of its students studying abroad. The only other Ivy on the list was Brown University, at 32 percent.
The Princeton Review, the other major national college ranking system, released their more specific rankings Monday afternoon in their guide, "The Best 361 Colleges."
With top 20 rankings focused less on academics and prestige, Dartmouth failed to come in the top 10 for any of the categories.
Dartmouth's highest placement in the Princeton Review's rankings was 11th for "best campus food." The College's social scene was also noted, as Dartmouth placed 13th for a "major frat and sorority scene" and 15th for "lots of beer (usage reported high)."
Dartmouth also made appearances on the rankings for "best college library" and "toughest to get into," coming in at 16th and 17th place, respectively.
Barely managing to make the list for "best quality of life," Dartmouth ranked 20th across the nation.
For the U.S. News report, schools are ranked within the category of Best National Universities -- Doctoral.
There are 248 national universities in the category, with 162 classified as public and 86 as private.
The ranking formula is based on a combination of seven factors, with peer assessment -- the opinions of presidents, provosts and deans of admission -- weighed most heavily.
In its study, U.S. News asks these officials to rank peer schools' academic programs on a scale of one to five and to abstain from ranking if they do not know enough about a school to evaluate it.
The other six factors in the college rank are retention rate; faculty resources, including faculty salaries and student-professor ratios; student selectivity, such as test scores; financial resources, including per-student spending; graduation rate performance and alumni giving rates.
Although the U.S. News college rankings have become de-facto guides for ambitious high school students and their parents, the U.S. News website warns its readers to not "rely solely on rankings to choose a college."
The Princeton Review, on the other hand, declined to publish a "best school" category, choosing instead to focus on individual categories.
"We don't think one school is best overall. We recommend all 361 schools in this book as outstanding undergraduate institutions. They differ widely. It's which school is best for you that's important," the Princeton Review webpage said.
The Princeton Review placed more emphasis on students, conducting a survey that polled 110,000 students in four categories: academics/administration, life at their college, fellow students and themselves.
Dartmouth students have expressed frustration in the College's ranking, pointing out the unfairness of judging a small college such as Dartmouth against the much larger resources of a university like Yale.
"I can't even say I know exactly what we're being ranked on, besides reputation, at this point," Clara Aranovich '07 said, noting that most schools in the top 12 rarely shift in rankings.
"I'd like to move up," Aranovich added. "We have high-caliber, hard-working kids -- but where would we go? We're a college in a ranking of universities. Of course we don't have high numbers when it comes to a percent of faculty cited in this kind of journal or a percent of students doing this kind of research. We're undergraduates."
Yana Rozental '07 sees the difference between a college and university experience as Dartmouth's shortcoming, however.
"The ranking is below where we could be, but it's appropriate given that the trustees will not commit to making this a high-powered research institution," Rozental said.
"As a relatively small college amongst bigger universities, we cannot adequately live up to our Ivy League name. We could be right alongside Harvard but not if we don't make some serious changes to our structure."
Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg was not available for comment.
Both U.S. News and Princeton Review rankings for graduate schools will be released later in the year.
Staff writer Jessica Chen contributed to this report.
