Penn was ranked No. 10 in the 2024-25 U.S. News and World Report's list of best national universities.
Credit: Chenyao LiuPenn dropped to No. 10 in the U.S. News & World Report’s annual Best National University rankings, marking its lowest position since 1997.
A preliminary copy of the top 10 schools in the 2024-25 rankings, obtained exclusively by The Daily Pennsylvanian, shows Penn ranking four places lower than it did on last year’s list — and No. 4 among Ivy League schools. Princeton University claimed the No. 1 spot in the rankings, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in No. 2 and Harvard University in No. 3.
The official rankings will be released on Sept. 24 on the U.S. News website. Penn and the rest of the top 10 schools did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.
"U.S News provides preliminary information to institutions about our Best Colleges rankings," a U.S. News spokesperson wrote to the DP. "Any information provided is not considered final until publication on USNews.com until our publication date. This year that date is September 24."
Before this year, Penn had maintained a placement of No. 9 or higher in the U.S. News rankings since 1997, when the school was ranked No. 13 in the nation.
The results also show an unchanged top three schools from last year’s rankings. Stanford University, which was tied for No. 3 in last year’s edition, slipped to No. 4. Yale University maintained its No. 5 ranking. Penn saw the largest year-to-year drop in its placement out of the entire top 10.
Four universities tied for No. 6, the spot Penn held in the last year’s 2023-24 rankings. The California Institute of Technology and Duke University moved up from a tied No. 7, while Johns Hopkins University and Northwestern University improved from a joint No. 9 ranking to a four-way tie for No. 6. Brown University, which was also tied for No. 9 in last year’s rankings, slipped out of the top 10.
Penn's No. 10 ranking is its lowest spot in U.S. News since 1997
According to a U.S. News article, this year’s ranking methodology removed first-generation student graduation rates as a factor for national universities and historically Black colleges and universities, replacing this figure in its formula with Pell Grant graduation rates. The rankings still account for student outcomes like retention rates, graduate indebtedness, and post-graduate earnings.
About two-thirds of surveyed schools, including nearly all of the top 100 national universities, submitted their own data for the rankings.
Last year, the DP reported that Penn had likely listed inaccurate student-faculty ratio metrics used by the U.S. News rankings, according to multiple higher education experts. The experts spoke with the DP about the conflicting underlying metrics that Penn appears to have listed for its student-faculty ratio for over 15 years, and what it meant for the University’s U.S. News ranking.
It remains unclear what figures might have prompted a shift in the University’s standings between this year and last.
Correction: In a previous version of this article, the data table erroneously stated that Yale was ranked at No. 4 and Stanford at No. 5 in 2025. It has been updated to clarify that Yale is at No. 5 and Stanford is at No. 4. The DP regrets this error.
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