50-50 Highlights: Schools in the US News College Rankings Top 100

(I’ve updated this post with the most recent rankings.)

Sorry. It’s the reason why traffic slows down on the opposite of the freeway from the accident. We just can’t help but look, if just for a second.  And while the list of 50-50 schools is going the opposite direction of the US News College Rankings, they did come out this month and we might as well get it over with and look.

Anyone who has been reading this blog knows that I try to make the case for colleges that no one has ever heard of regarding the 50-50 list. But if you go by the US News Rankings of National Universities and Liberal Arts Colleges, maybe they aren’t quite as anonymous as you might think.

Only three 50-50 schools made in the top 50 of the US News Rankings-one among National Universities and two among Liberal Arts Colleges. I’m not sure that there’s actually anything such as a well-known Liberal Arts College, but the list is the list.

(Don’t believe me about well-known Liberal Arts Colleges? Take the top ten LACs and then the top ten from one of the regional lists. Mix them up and start asking friends, family, and co-workers to pick out the national LACS. Unless you live in the world where kids are embarrassed that they didn’t qualify for at least AP Scholar with Distinction, most people won’t know which are which.)

Back to the rubbernecking. A total of 35 50-50 schools made the US News College Rankings top 100 on the National University rankings and 39 for the top 100 National Liberal Arts Colleges. If the US News College Rankings mean anything to you, that should count for something, shouldn’t it?

Now there are some data issues such the US News College Rankings data and the IPEDS data don’t quite match, usually the graduation rates. But they do come from two different data sets and we are rubbernecking so we’ll take what we can get. The tables below list 50-50 schools that appear in the US News College Rankings top 100 for National Universities and Liberal Arts Colleges.

As usual, for 50-50 schools the four-year graduation rate is used for private schools and the five-year rate for public schools. Look and then get back to figuring out which schools are best for your family.

50-50 Colleges in the US News College Top 100 National Rankings