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Duke ranked eighth in the 2027 edition of the U.S. News and World Report Best National University rankings, falling one place from last year’s rank.

The 2026-27 rankings, published Monday evening, mark Duke’s lowest ranking in four years — albeit only two places behind its No. 6 slot in the 2024-25 rankings.

Duke broke away from Johns Hopkins University and Northwestern University in this year’s rankings after tying the institutions for two years in a row. The University of Pennsylvania — which also tied Duke in last year’s rankings — remained the sole No. 7 this year.

For the first time since 2011, Princeton University did not top the rankings, instead placing second. Instead, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology took first place this year, marking MIT’s highest ranking to date.

https://dukechronicle.com/article/duke-university-slip-8th-place-us-news-world-report-national-ranking-best-university-ivy-harvard-princeton-stanford-mit-caltech-northwestern-yale-pennsylvania-cornell-johns-hopkins-brown-20260922?shem=dsdf,sharefoc,agadiscoversdl,,sh/x/discover/m1/4

Returning to the top 10 this year, the California Institute of Technology rose six places to claim the fifth spot, up from 11th last year; Stanford University tied Caltech for fifth, dropping one place. Other Ivy+ schools in the top 10 include Harvard University at No. 3 for the fifth year in a row; Yale University maintaining its No. 4 spot; and Johns Hopkins, Northwestern and the University of Chicago tied for ninth.

Of the remaining Ivy League schools, Dartmouth University and Columbia University tied for No. 12, Cornell University ranked 14th and Brown University came in last at No. 16. Brown is part of a four-way tie with Vanderbilt University, Rice University and Washington University in St. Louis.

Duke’s highest ever ranking was in 1998, peaking at No. 3. Its lowest ranking came in 1989 and 2021, when the University placed 12th. Duke has generally been in the top 10 schools since the modern U.S. News rankings began in 1988.

Mormans #27
Mizzou #34

I can live with that.

Interesting to note Sagarin--I assume Jeff, right--is still around crunching numbers.  He was a big part of the original BCS rankings.

2026 College Football through games of September 19 Saturday - Week 3
                                                                             
  1  Notre Dame         
  2  Ohio State         
  3  Texas               
  4  Oregon             
  5  Miami-Florida       
  6  Alabama             
  7  Indiana             
  8  Georgia             
  9  LSU                 
  10  Texas A&M           
                 
  11  Mississippi         
  12  Oklahoma           
  13  Florida             
  14  Penn State         
  15  Tennessee           
  16  Michigan           
  17  Texas Tech         
  18  Iowa               
  19  Southern California 
  20  Auburn             
                                       
  21  Mississippi State   
  22  Utah               
  23  Louisville         
  24  South Carolina     
  25  SMU                 
  26  BYU                 
  27  Kentucky           
  28  Pittsburgh         
  29  Nebraska           
  30  Missouri          

  31  Wisconsin           
  32  UCLA               
  33  Virginia Tech       
  34  Houston             
  35  Virginia           
  36  Northwestern       
  37  Kansas State       
  38  Vanderbilt         
  39  Illinois           
  40  Washington         

  41  Minnesota    
  48  Maryland
  54  Michigan State 
  64  Purdue
  76  Rutgers 

http://sagarin.com/sports/cfsend.htm

Purdue at 22?  That seems low considering GaTech is at 6.   

Given that the functional difference between those two rankings is nearly zero, it shouldn't surprise you too much. :-)

2027 Top Public Colleges & Universities | US News Rankings
2027 Top Public Colleges & Universities | US News Rankings

Ya know, it's really confusing that there's a town called Indiana in the state of Pennsylvania and that we wind up with Indiana University of Pennsylvania.  

Yeah, I suppose in reality 6 and 22 are not functionally different, but I had a notion that Tech and Purdue were comparable academically.  And maybe also in football.

A lot of differences... (Note: some of these stats may not be perfectly apples-to-apples.)

Despite similar total enrollment, Purdue has about 2x the undergraduate enrollment, while Tech has about 2.5x the graduate student enrollment. 

Despite being an "engineering school", only 1/3 of Purdue students are studying engineering. Apparently about 48% of GT undergrads graduate with an engineering degree. 

But most importantly, these rankings are HEAVILY skewed to undergraduate graduation rates. This tends to really favor ultra-selective schools who only admit the can't-miss prospects. It tends to hurt schools with more egalitarian selection criteria who might take a chance on prospects who might flame out. 

Purdue in particular is MUCH more selective for engineering, and for science. If you look at the acceptance rates, the median SAT / ACT scores of those admitted, etc, it's high. But those two colleges is combined <50% of the student body. Other majors are far less selective. 

But even then, Georgia Tech in 2026&nbsp;had an overall acceptance rate
in 2026 had an overall acceptance rate of ~28% for GA residents and 9% OOS. That puts it below, across all majors, Purdue's 34.1% admit rate for engineering. 

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So tl;dr -- if you want to be an elite school, don't let anyone in who might even have a CHANCE of not making it out. If you do that, you climb the rankings, making even more students WANT to apply to your school, making it easy to ensure you never have to admit anyone who is a non-graduation risk. It's a virtuous or vicious cycle, depending on how cynical your perspective might be.