US News rankings

The US News rankings are the most widely used set of college and graduate professional school rankings.

Undergraduate ranking

As an undergraduate institution, Columbia typically places around 8th or 9th. This is probably fairly accurate, but many people believe that Columbia is consistently under-ranked because its admissions committee places less of an emphasis on SAT scores than most of the other top 10 universities. Additionally, alumni giving is consistently lower at Columbia than at comparable institutions, further affecting our rank. Somehow, Penn manages to consistently achieve higher rank.

Law school ranking

For the past few years, the law school has been battling with NYU for fifth place. In 2008, it claimed fourth place, decisively beating its downtown rival.