The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings give students and their families the information they need to help them choose where to study. Uniquely, it has at its heart the voices of more than 200,000 current American college students, collected through Times Higher Education’s annual US Student Survey.

The rankings of more than 1,000 US schools, colleges and universities are made up of 15 individual performance indicators designed to answer the questions that matter the most to students and their families: How likely am I to graduate, pay off my loans and get a good job? Does the college have plenty of resources to teach me properly? Will I be engaged and stretched in the classroom and get good access to my teachers? Is there a diverse campus community?

View the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings 2018 methodology

This year Harvard University tops the table, while last year’s leader Stanford University drops down to joint third. The University of California, Los Angeles overtakes the University of Michigan to become the top public institution in 25th place.

Meanwhile, Williams College is the top liberal arts college in the ranking at 22nd place.

The entirely student-focused nature of the WSJ/THE College Rankings means that the results differ significantly from the THE World University Rankings, which have a heavier emphasis on research excellence on a global scale.

The calculation of the rankings for 2018 has been subject to independent audit by the professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

Note: all ranked institutions have an overall score and four pillar scores. However for each pillar, only institutions ranked in the top 500 overall, and the top 500 in this pillar, have a publicly visible score.