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<p>The problem with USNews is that it’s not a ranking of academics. They admit that. It’s a ranking of “best colleges to attend”. The most highly scored component is retention rate. Why might a school have a high retention rate? It could be because the school is excellent so students rarely leave willingly (i.e. Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc) or it could be because the school has plenty of low-difficulty majors that struggling students can use. Or it could be because the school has severe grade inflation. You just don’t know. Regardless, Party Schools are notoriously severely over ranked by USN compared to other ratings services.</p>
<p>The ranking systems that take into account academics are very different. THE are shown above. QS is also widely used:</p>
<p>WUSTL #78
GT #84
Pitt #116
Vandy #131
UGA #386</p>