Four N.J. colleges rank among nation’s best in new survey

A quartet of New Jersey universities were ranked in the Top 100 nationwide in a new survey, the Quacquarelli Symonds World University Ranking USA 2020, with another eight making the leaderboard.

More than 700 U.S. colleges were rated on 17 metrics tied to academic reputation, employability, diversity, research and other factors.

Princeton University was the top-ranked school in New Jersey, coming in at No. 9 on the main list of 302 colleges.

“Princeton earns near-perfect scores for the majority of the indicators, particularly for learning experience — an indication of the high quality of the academic output,” QS said on its QS Top Universities website. “The university also scores well for individual subjects; for example, politics, where it places joint second in the world.”

Rutgers University-New Brunswick tied for the No. 41 spot, while New Jersey Institute of Technology ranked third in the state at No. 74 overall. Rutgers-Newark was the final Garden State institution in the Top 100, tying for the No. 100 ranking.

“This is excellent news and provides further validation of our university’s uncommon results and growing reputation for both student success and research productivity,” NJIT President Joel Bloom said in a prepared statement.

The remainder of the 302 schools listed in the rankings were grouped together.

Among other New Jersey colleges, Stevens Institute of Technology was listed in the No. 101-110 group, while Rowan University and Rutgers-Camden were ranked at No. 151-160, Seton Hall University placed in the No. 161-170 section, Rider University and The College of New Jersey ranked at No. 201-250 and William Paterson University finished in the No. 251-300 group.

This was the first time QS had broken out U.S. colleges into their own ranking, according to the QS site.

On the QS world rankings, Princeton ranked No. 13 globally, while Rutgers tied for No. 262. Rutgers-Newark and Stevens were in the group at No. 651-700 and NJIT was in the group at No. 751-800. Overall, 157 U.S. universities were ranked in the Top 1000 worldwide.