This California college is harder to get into than Stanford, ranking shows

After dropping slightly from the top spot last year, UCLA is once again ranked the nation’s best public university by Niche.

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UCLA’s return to the No. 1 spot in Niche’s 2027 Best Colleges in America rankings comes after it fell to No. 2 last year behind University of Michigan. Niche, a popular data analysis site, considers several factors in its rankings, including academics, financial payoff, campus life, diversity, professors, student success, student life, student surveys, safety and the local area, according to its website.

UCLA also earned No. 1 titles in several of Niche’s other categories, such as best college campus and best college food. The elite university, with 32,972 students and only a 9% acceptance rate, was also named the best big college in the country, the best university in the United States for Hispanic students, and the best for Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander students.

The other top public schools on the list this year were University of Michigan – Ann Arbor (dethroned from last year to No. 2), University of Virginia (No. 3), Georgia Institute of Technology (No. 4), University of Texas – Austin (No. 5), University of Florida (No. 6), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (No. 7), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (No. 8), UC Berkeley (No. 9) and University of Wisconsin-Madison (No. 10).

UC Berkeley held on to its No. 9 spot from last year among the nation’s best public schools. Among both private and public schools, the university climbed six places to No. 42, up from No. 48 last year. UCLA also moved up to No. 17 on the full list, compared with No. 20 last year.

Other prestigious California universities also made some gains on the list of all schools. Stanford University landed at No. 2, up from No. 3 last year, and California Institute of Technology secured the No. 6 spot, up from No. 9 last year. Caltech was also named as the school with the “best value” in the country, a calculation that factors in tuition rates, student debt and alumni earnings, according to Niche.

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Besting Caltech on the overall list were Massachusetts Institute of Technology (No. 1), Yale University (No. 3), Harvard University (No. 4) and Princeton University (No. 5).

One of the year’s biggest surprises, however, came outside the academic rankings.

UC Santa Barbara, known for its wild ragers, lost its title as the top party school in America to Florida State University, according to Niche. The beachside university plummeted to No. 26, even falling behind USC (No. 5) and San Diego State University (No. 18).