California lands 2 schools in U.S. News’ top 5 colleges

California made a strong showing in U.S. News’ latest college rankings, with two of the state’s universities earning a spot in the nation’s top five.

Read more California suspect fleeing police breaks into home, kills woman, officials say

Stanford University and the California Institute of Technology tied for the No. 5 spot in the latest ranking published Tuesday. Both universities, though, moved in opposite directions to land there compared to last year. Stanford fell one slot while Caltech climbed six places.

Ahead of the two California universities this year were Massachusetts Institute of Technology (No. 1), Princeton University (No. 2), Harvard University (No. 3) and Yale University (No. 4). Last year, Princeton claimed the No. 1 spot with MIT following just behind. 

The next California universities to appear at the top of the list were the state’s most competitive universities, UC Berkeley and UCLA. The rival schools have consistently swapped places for the title of the nation’s best public university, but this year they tied for the crown.

The prestigious California schools were the first public universities to appear on the overall list at No. 20 where they shared a three-way tie along with University of Notre Dame. Last year, UC Berkeley previously ranked at No, 15 while UCLA held the No. 17 slot.

Read more Helicopter battling Dome Fire crashes in Yosemite National Park leaving 2 dead

Other California schools also claimed top spots in the new ranking. The state’s universities that landed in the top 50 were USC (No. 27 tied with University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), UC San Diego (No. 29 tied with Georgia Institute of Technology), UC Davis and UC Irvine (tied with six other schools for No. 34), and UC Santa Barbara (No. 44 in a five-way tie).

While most California schools did not see dramatic drops, the rankings included one notable change: For the first time in seven years, not all nine UC undergraduate campuses made the top 100. UC Santa Cruz fell to No. 107 in a seven-way tie after reaching No. 88 last year.

UC Merced and UC Riverside, which ranked at No. 69 and No. 80 respectively, did well on the publication’s new specialty ranking of universities with the best social mobility. On that list, UC Riverside tied with Florida International University for the No. 1 slot, and UC Merced took No. 4.