Three LI universities in top 150 of U.S. News rankings

Three Long Island schools landed in the top 150 in the national universities category of the 2015 Best Colleges rankings released Tuesday by U.S. News & World Report.

Stony Brook University tied for 88th place, while Hofstra University tied for 135th and Adelphi University tied for 149th, according to the U.S. News website.
Last year Stony Brook tied for 82nd place, with Hofstra tied for 135th and Adelphi ranked 152nd.

In other categories this year, Stony Brook was ranked 38th on the Top Public Schools list and 15th on the Best Colleges for Veterans list, where Hofstra was 36th and Adelphi 45th.

Princeton University claimed the top spot on the national list, followed by Harvard University and Yale University, with Columbia University, Stanford University and the University of Chicago tying for fourth place. Among national liberal arts colleges, Williams College took the top place again this year, followed by Amherst College and Swarthmore College.

Leaders of the Long Island schools said they were pleased.

“Ranking among the top 100 and among the top 40 public institutions in the United States, Stony Brook University constantly strives to provide a high-quality education at an affordable price in fields that offer excellent career opportunities for our students,” said the school’s president, Dr. Samuel L. Stanley Jr. “These rankings are a testament to the hard work and dedicated efforts of our faculty and staff, and they can all share in, and take pride in, this achievement.”

Hofstra, in a statement, said that during the past decade the school has “enhanced our national reputation and reach, hosting two presidential debates and focusing resources on the sciences with the launch of the Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine, the School of Health Sciences and Human Services, and the School of Engineering and Applied Science.”

The university noted that U.S. News ranked its engineering school, which opened three years ago, among the nation’s top 50 undergraduate engineering programs.
At Adelphi, Gayle D. Insler, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, said, “Our commitment to helping students reach their personal academic goals has allowed Adelphi students to once again exceed U.S. News’ projected graduation rates.”

Molloy College was among nine schools ranked No. 41 on U.S. News’ list of top regional universities in the North. New York Institute of Technology, in a six-way tie, came in 50th and St. Joseph’s College, in a four-way tie, was 70th on that list.
Farmingdale State College ranked No. 8 on the list of top public regional colleges in the North and was No. 28 among top regional public and private colleges in the North.

The rankings for LIU Post, Dowling College and The College at Old Westbury were not published.

U.S. News rated nearly 1,800 academic institutions on up to 16 factors, with graduation and retention rates weighed most heavily, the magazine said in a news release. U.S. News for the first time included information on campus crime and security, though these were not factored into the rankings.