UC Berkeley has kept its coveted ranking as the nation’s top public university by U.S. News & World Report, with UCLA and the University of Virginia tied in second place and the University of Michigan coming in fourth.

Top public universities 1. UC Berkeley

2. UCLA

2. Virginia

4. Michigan

5. North Carolina

6. William and Mary

7. Georgia Tech

8. UC Santa Barbara

9. UC Irvine

10. UC San Diego

10. UC Davis

10. Illinois

10. Wisconsin Top 20, public and private 1. Princeton

2. Harvard

3. Yale

3. Chicago

5. Columbia

5. Stanford

7. MIT

8. Duke

8. Pennsylvania

10. Johns Hopkins

11. Dartmouth

12. Cal Tech

12. Northwestern

14. Brown

15. Cornell

15. Notre Dame

15. Rice

15. Vanderbilt

19. Washington St. Louis

20. UC Berkeley

20. Emory

20. Georgetown

Six UC campuses ranked among the top 10 public universities, according to U.S. News’ annual list of “America’s Best Colleges,” released today.

UC Santa Barbara placed eighth, UC Irvine ninth and UC Davis and UC San Diego tied in 10th position. UCSF is not included in the category.

Among all the national public and private research universities ranked for the magazine’s annual assessment of academic excellence, UC Berkeley, along with Georgetown and Emory, placed 20th.

Overall, Princeton took the top spot and Harvard remained in second place. Yale held onto third place, joined by the University of Chicago, which climbed up a spot from the previous year.

Columbia and Stanford dropped to fifth place, MIT held onto seventh place, Duke and Pennsylvania placed eighth and Johns Hopkins stayed at No. 10.

The eagerly awaited U.S.News rankings assess nearly 1,800 colleges and universities nationwide on 16 critera that include academic excellence, academic reputation, student selectivity, faculty resources, graduation and retention rates, financial resources and alumni giving.

Berkeley typically performs best in rankings when academic excellence, faculty quality and research are weighted heavily, according to campus analysts.

Once again this year, Berkeley ranked highly for its reputation in business and engineering, in speciality fields within these disciplines, as well as among high school guidance counselors.

In other U.S. News & World Report lists published this week, Berkeley ranked seventh for students amassing the least amount of cumulative debt, 11th for services and benefits extended to military veterans, 18th for faculty commitment to undergraduate teaching and 23rd for innovation in academics and campus life.

BERKELEY IN OTHER RECENT RANKINGS

Academic Ranking of World Universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China

No. 1 U.S. public, No.3 worldwide

The World Reputation Rankings by Times Higher Education, U.K.

No. 1 U.S. public, No. 13 worldwide

Money Magazine’s Best Colleges.

No. 2 U.S. public, No. 5 nationwide

Washington Monthly’s College Guide Rankings

No. 3 public, no. 7 nationwide