5 Illinois Schools Make Wall Street Journal's 'Top 50 Best Colleges' List – NBC Chicago

A total of nine Midwest schools have been ranked among the top 50 “Best Colleges in America,” including several in Illinois, a new Wall Street Journal report revealed.

The WSJ rankings, released Wednesday, use a methodology different from that used in previous years, according to the editors. As a result, the schools that made the list may not necessarily be the ones that made it in previous years.

“Some schools with longstanding reputations don't fare as well when we look at their student outcomes under our new methodology,” the WSJ reported in a Post on Instagram. For example, the editors said: “Brown University and Johns Hopkins University, two of our top 10 for 2022, perform less well, at Nos. 67 and 99 respectively.”

MORE: University of Illinois and 4 other Midwest schools rank in Forbes' US 'Top 25 Public Colleges'

For this year's rankings, the editors said they worked with data scientists at Statistics be used to put colleges and universities on a “more level playing field.” The editors also noted that their focus this year was on comparing the results of each school's graduates to “what those students were likely to achieve regardless of where they went to school.”

“In reality, colleges are not only rewarded for their raw performance on traditional metrics. wrote the WSJ. “Rather, they are also evaluated against a benchmark that shows how schools are improving the career paths of their students.”