University Rankings by Subject or Major

Most college ranking sites rank institutions of higher education nationally.

Some, such as US News, also rank them regionally.

It’s not uncommon for many college rankers to rank schools based on their type, too — private, public, liberal arts, graduate, or online.

Definitely, there are various ways to rank colleges.

However, not many college rankings sites rank colleges by subject or major.

According to Forbes, it makes more sense for colleges to be ranked based on majors as far as social mobility goes because it allows students to have an idea of how they could do financially after graduation.

It’s a good thing, though, that many of those who rank schools by major are some of the most reliable and thus tend to get more traffic than most others, most especially when the college application season nears.

Some ranking sites that rank colleges by subjects or majors are the following:

• Niche
• Times Higher Education (THE)
• US News

Lists vs. Rankings

It’s worth noting that some other college ranking sites also focus on majors offered by colleges and universities.

However, their listings are more lists rather than rankings — they simply provide a rundown of, say, colleges with the best journalism, religious studies, kinesiology or sports management majors.

One of those is Appily, which created Cappex in 2006.

As of this writing, it has almost 50 lists of best colleges by major, ranging from accounting, international studies to theater and from pharmacy, architecture to cosmetology.

Let’s take a look at how the website’s Best Culinary Schools list looks:

• Cornell University
• University of Florida
• New York University
• University of California, Davis
• College of the Ozarks
• California Polytechnic State University – San Luis Obispo
• University of Wisconsin – Madison
• University of Washington – Seattle
• University of Georgia
• University of Maryland – College Park
• North Carolina State University at Raleigh
• Ohio State University – Main Campus
• University of Minnesota – Twin Cities
• University of Massachusetts – Amherst
• Chapman University
• Purdue University
• Pennsylvania State University
• University of Illinois Urbana – Champaign
• University of Central Florida
• Clemson University
• Illinois Institute of Technology
• Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
• Simmons University
• University of Delaware
• Benedictine University
• Rutgers University – New Brunswick
• California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
• University of Alabama
• Bay Path University
• Michigan State University
• Brigham Young University
• Drexel University
• Lipscomb University
• Saint Francis University
• Oklahoma State University
• Iowa State University
• University of Nebraska – Lincoln
• Auburn University
• Texas Tech University
• The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
• Washington State University
• Dominican University
• University of Missouri – Columbia
• Appalachian State University
• Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College
• Oregon State University
• Texas A&M University
• California State University – Los Angeles
• University of Arkansas
• Colorado State University

The listings of Appily, by the way, also include information such as the type of institution and campus, number of attendees, net price, acceptance rate and the average SAT and ACT scores of admitted students.

Another college ranking site that provides listings of postsecondary institutions based on the majors they offer is College Simply, which provides tools such as a GPA calculator, college search, college comparison and college building.

Like Appily, College Simply also has a list of schools with the best culinary arts major.

Below, you will come across the Best Colleges With Culinary Arts/Chef Training Degrees in listing by College Simply.

Please take note that it only includes a fraction of the entries as there are a total of 249 colleges included.

• Drexel University
• University of Alaska Fairbanks
• University of Montana
• SUNY College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill
• Nicholls State University
• University of Akron Main Campus
• Indiana University of Pennsylvania
• Boise State University
• Keystone College
• George C. Wallace State Community College
• JF Drake State Technical College
• Shelton State Community College
• H Councill Trenholm State Technical College
• University of Alaska Anchorage
• Arizona Western College
• Cochise College
• Mesa Community College
• Mohave Community College
• Phoenix College
• Scottsdale Community College
• Ozarka College
• Pulaski Technical College
• Colorado Mountain College
• Red Rocks Community College
• Manchester Community College
• Delaware Technical and Community College – Terry
• Daytona State College
• Hillsborough Community College
• AI Miami International University of Art and Design
• Lincoln College of Technology – West Palm Beach
• Valencia College
• Albany Technical College
• Atlanta Technical College
• Augusta Technical College

Niche vs. THE vs. US News

Before we check out how different college rankings based on subjects or majors could appear from one ranking site to the other, let’s first take a quick look at the websites whose rankings we will compare.

Niche

Formerly known as College Prowler, Niche is a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based company that ranks and reviews colleges.

It was back in 2002 when it was founded by a couple of students from Carnegie Mellon University.

According to its website, Niche has more than 200,000 in-depth profiles on schools (including K-12, colleges and graduate schools), companies and neighborhoods as well as 100 million plus ratings and reviews from actual people.

It adds that over 50 million people used its website in the past year.

Various factors are considered by Niche in ranking colleges based on major.

Similarly, it obtains figures from various sources, such as the US Department of Education and the National Science Foundation, in scoring schools.

Here’s what Niche’s methodology looks like:

Factor	Weight
Overall Niche Grade	36.80%
Percent of majoring students	19.10%
Major demand	13.50%
Student surveys	10.50%
Research expenditures per student	7.70%
Percent of graduates	7.70%
Research expenditures for the program	4.70%

THE

In the past, THE was popular for publishing the Times Higher Education – QS World University Rankings annually.

In 2009, however, it parted ways with Quacquarelli Symonds (QS).

Unlike most other college ranking sites that are popular among American students, THE ranks institutions of higher education on the global stage, which makes it great for both domestic and international degree-seekers.

Some of its rankings include global, regional, teaching and by subject.

Unlike Niche, which uses the same methodology for ranking each major offered by different colleges and universities, THE recalibrates its ranking methodology by changing each benchmark’s weight to suit each subject.

The following is what THE’s methodology looks like for psychology and computer science:

Factor	Psychology Weight	Computer Science Weight
Teaching	26.80%	28.00%
Research environment	26.50%	29.00%
Research quality	35.20%	27.50%
International outlook	7.50%	7.50%
Industry (income, etc.)	4.00%	8.00%

US News

In the late 1940s, two weekly publications, one a domestic newspaper (US News) and the other an international magazine (World Report), merged and resulted in the US News & World Report.

According to the college site, it’s visited by around 40 million people.

The popular college ranker adds that, annually, it publishes the rankings of more than 11,500 academic institutions as well as hundreds of individual programs as a part of the Best Colleges, Best Graduate Schools and other listings.

Unlike Niche and THE, which uses proprietary methodologies, US News ranks colleges by major based mostly on the opinions of deans and senior faculty members of academic departments at schools that participate in a peer assessment survey.

The said individuals rate each program from eligible institutions using a 5-point scale: 5 for outstanding, 4 for strong, 3 for good, 2 for adequate and 1 for marginal.

Similarly, for institutions to be surveyed, they must meet certain criteria set by US News.

For instance, for the college ranking site’s Best Computer Science Programs listing, colleges must be regionally accredited and offer a computer science program that’s accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET).

Rankings by Subject or Major

In this part of the post, we’ll take a look at how the rankings of colleges according to subject or major offered tend to change from one college ranker to the other — Niche, THE and US News.

There are more than 100 majors out there, and we’ll focus on four of the most popular.

Business

	Niche	THE	US News
1	University of Pennsylvania	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	University of Pennsylvania
2	Georgetown University	Stanford University	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
3	University of Southern California	Harvard University	University of California, Berkeley
4	Cornell University	University of California, Berkeley	University of Michigan – Ann Arbor
5	University of Georgia	University of Chicago	New York University
6	Babson College	Yale University	University of Texas at Austin
7	Carnegie Mellon University	University of Pennsylvania	Carnegie Mellon University
8	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Northwestern University	Cornell University
9	University of Michigan – Ann Arbor	Columbia University	Indiana University Bloomington
10	University of Notre Dame	New York University	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
11	University of Texas at Austin	Duke University	University of Southern California
12	Florida State University	University of California, Los Angeles	University of Virginia
13	University of Virginia	Cornell University	Emory University
14	University of Florida	University of Michigan – Ann Arbor	Georgetown University
15	Northwestern University	Carnegie Mellon University	University of Notre Dame
16	Virginia Tech	University of California, San Diego	Washington University in St. Louis
17	Northeastern University	University of Minnesota	Ohio State University
18	Florida International University	Dartmouth College	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
19	Boston University	Michigan State University	University of Washington
20	University of Miami	University of Southern California	University of Wisconsin – Madison
21	Rice University	University of Washington	Georgia Institute of Technology
22	New York University	University of Texas at Austin	University of Minnesota
23	Oklahoma State University	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	Michigan State University
24	Washington University in St. Louis	University of California, Davis	Pennsylvania State University
25	Indiana University Bloomington	Boston University	University of Georgia

Computer Science

	Niche	THE	US News
1	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Stanford University	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2	Stanford University	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Stanford University
3	Carnegie Mellon University	Carnegie Mellon University	University of California, Berkeley
4	California Institute of Technology	Harvard University	Carnegie Mellon University
5	Harvard University	Princeton University	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
6	Columbia University	University of California, Berkeley	University of Washington
7	Princeton University	California Institute of Technology	Cornell University
8	Georgia Institute of Technology	Cornell University	Georgia Institute of Technology
9	Yale University	University of Washington	Princeton University
10	Brown University	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	University of Texas at Austin
11	Cornell University	Georgia Institute of Technology	University of Michigan – Ann Arbor
12	Harvey Mudd College	Yale University	University of California, San Diego
13	University of Pennsylvania	Columbia University	University of Wisconsin – Madison
14	Vanderbilt University	Johns Hopkins University	California Institute of Technology
15	Rice University	New York University	Columbia University
16	University of Michigan – Ann Arbor	University of Texas at Austin	University of California, Los Angeles
17	University of Southern California	University of Pennsylvania	Harvard University
18	Dartmouth College	University of California, San Diego	University of Maryland, College Park
19	Duke University	University of Chicago	University of Pennsylvania
20	University of Chicago	University of Michigan – Ann Arbor	Duke University
21	Northwestern University	University of Maryland, College Park	Purdue University
22	University of California, Los Angeles	Purdue University	Yale University
23	University of Texas at Austin	University of Massachusetts	Johns Hopkins University
24	Northeastern University	Duke University	Ohio State University
25	University of California, Berkeley	University of Southern California	University of California, Santa Barbara

Engineering

	Niche	THE	US News
1	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Harvard University	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2	Stanford University	Stanford University	Stanford University
3	Georgia Institute of Technology	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	University of California, Berkeley
4	Rice University	University of California, Berkeley	Purdue University
5	Yale University	Caltech	Carnegie Mellon University
6	Harvard University	Princeton University	Georgia Institute of Technology
7	California Institute of Technology	Georgia Institute of Technology	California Institute of Technology
8	Princeton University	University of California, Los Angeles	University of Michigan – Ann Arbor
9	Columbia University	Yale University	University of Texas
10	Carnegie Mellon University	University of Michigan – Ann Arbor	Texas A&M University
11	University of Michigan – Ann Arbor	Carnegie Mellon University	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
12	Duke University	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	University of California, San Diego
13	University of Pennsylvania	Columbia University	Cornell University
14	Vanderbilt University	Cornell University	Johns Hopkins University
15	Cornell University	University of Texas at Austin	University of Southern California
16	Dartmouth College	Northwestern University	University of California, Los Angeles
17	University of Southern California	Purdue University	Columbia University
18	Johns Hopkins University	University of Pennsylvania	Northwestern University
19	University of Notre Dame	Johns Hopkins University	University of Colorado – Boulder
20	University of California, Los Angeles	University of California, San Diego	University of Maryland, College Park
21	University of Texas at Austin	University of California, Santa Barbara	University of Pennsylvania
22	University of California, Berkeley	University of Washington	Duke University
23	Northwestern University	Texas A&M University	Harvard University
24	University of Florida	Duke University	Princeton University
25	Harvey Mudd College	University of Wisconsin – Madison	North Carolina State University

Psychology

	Niche	THE	US News
1	Stanford University	Stanford University	Stanford University
2	Yale University	Princeton University	University of California, Berkeley
3	University of California, Los Angeles	Harvard University	Harvard University
4	University of Michigan – Ann Arbor	University of California, Berkeley	University of California, Los Angeles
5	Harvard University	Yale University	University of Michigan – Ann Arbor
6	University of Pennsylvania	University of Pennsylvania	Princeton University
7	Columbia University	University of Chicago	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
8	Northwestern University	University of Michigan – Ann Arbor	Yale University
9	Vanderbilt University	University of California, Los Angeles	Cornell University
10	University of Southern California	Columbia University	Northwestern University
11	Duke University	New York University	University of Wisconsin – Madison
12	Rice University	Duke University	Columbia University
13	Washington University in St. Louis	Johns Hopkins University	Duke University
14	Dartmouth College	Northwestern University	Johns Hopkins University
15	New York University	University of Minnesota	University of California, Davis
16	Brown University	Carnegie Mellon University	University of California, San Diego
17	Princeton University	Cornell University	University of Chicago
18	University of Florida	University of Texas at Austin	University of Colorado – Boulder
19	University of California, San Diego	University of California, Davis	University of Minnesota
20	University of Chicago	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
21	Florida International University	University of California, Irvine	University of Pennsylvania
22	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	University of California, San Diego	Vanderbilt University
23	University of California, Irvine	Vanderbilt University	Brown University
24	University of Virginia	University of Washington	Carnegie Mellon University
25	University of California, Berkeley	University of Wisconsin – Madison	Emory University