Boston College tied for No. 36 in the 2026 U.S. News & World Report rankings, released Tuesday, marking its second consecutive year of recovery after a gradual slide from its record No. 30 spot in 2016.
BC shares the No. 36 spot with Tufts University, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
In the National Universities category, U.S. News evaluated more than 400 institutions across 17 criteria, including student outcomes; peer institutional assessments from presidents, provosts, and deans; faculty and financial resources; standardized test scores; and research activity.
For the third straight year, more than half a university’s score was based on measures assessing the number of students from underrepresented backgrounds it enrolled, the support provided to help those students graduate with manageable debt, and graduate salaries.
Unlike last year, when U.S. News overhauled its methodology and weighting system, this year’s ranking only saw slight adjustments to underlying data.
“While the general scoring weights and factors remained consistent, the 2026 rankings made a few small adjustments to ensure the results accurately reflect the evolving landscape of higher education,” LaMont Jones, managing editor for education at U.S. News, said in a press release. “By considering students’ credit hours and increasing the minimum number of students for a cohort, the rankings deliver a view of institutional investment in students, and graduation and retention rates.”
The 2026 rankings come against a turbulent backdrop for higher education, beset by research funding cuts, political attacks on diversity programs, and sweeping policy changes for international students—pressures BC has been unable to escape, despite efforts to maintain a low profile. Yet, the list showed surprising stability.
Just three institutions in the top 50 saw changes of five or more positions, as Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University maintained their places at the top of the list.
Among Boston-area universities, BC and Tufts trailed MIT (No. 2) and Harvard (No. 3) but ranked ahead of Boston University (No. 42), Northeastern University (No. 46), and Brandeis University (No. 69).
BC remained the nation’s third highest-ranked Catholic university, behind the University of Notre Dame, which slipped two spots to No. 20, and Georgetown University, which held steady at No. 24.
In the business program rankings, the Carroll School of Management’s finance and accounting disciplines reached their highest-ever rankings, placing No. 6 and No. 8 in the nation, respectively. Among the other disciplines, marketing held steady at No. 10, analytics climbed to No. 10, entrepreneurship slipped to No. 11, and management remained at No. 11.
BC’s Connell School of Nursing, however, saw a decline in its rankings, falling from a record high No. 9 spot last year to No. 13. In its new position, it tied with eight other schools, including New York University, University of Virginia, and University of California, Los Angeles.
In the report’s niche categories, BC ranked No. 5 in the “First-Year Experience”, No. 6 in “Best Undergraduate Teaching,” and No. 10 in “Service Learning” categories. BC dropped two spots in “Best Value Schools” to No. 54 but jumped four spots to No. 32 in “Undergraduate Research/Creative Projects.”
