slides: US News Best Colleges 2014: How Central MA Colleges Ranked

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

GoLocalWorcester Features Team

They're finally here. US News & World Reports' 2014 Best Colleges rankings of nearly 1,800 schools nationwide have arrived this morning with customary obsessive attention nationwide.

There were few surprises at the top of the heap. Princeton, Harvard and Yale commanded the top three spots in the National Universities category, while Williams College in MA once again held on to its spot as #1 in Liberal Arts Colleges, followed by rival Amherst College.

That's all well and good, but how did Central Massachusetts's colleges fare in this year's ranking? Who moved up, who went down? See how all of Central MA's colleges fared in the slides, below (and for those not ranked but included in US News' listings, see the latest data on these local colleges as well).

Note as to categories: Schools in the National Universities category, such as Clark University and WPI, offer a full range of undergraduate majors, plus master's and Ph.D. programs. These colleges also are committed to producing groundbreaking research. Liberal Arts Colleges are schools like Williams, which emphasize undergraduate education and award at least half of their degrees in the liberal arts fields of study. Regional Universities offer a full range of undergrad programs and some master's programs but few doctoral programs, and Regional Colleges focus on undergraduate education but grant fewer than half their degrees in liberal arts disciplines.