The 104 Smartest Public Colleges In America

If you want to be surrounded with some of the smartest students in the US and get the most bang for your buck, you may want to consider one of the following universities.

From our recent list of the smartest colleges in America, we pulled out the top 100 public schools. These colleges offer brainpower and affordability, since the average annual cost of attending an in-state public school is $8,500, according to US News & World Report. Compare that to the average private school cost of $30,500 - a difference of $22,000 a year.

In order to determine a school's overall smarts, Jonathan Wai, a Duke University Talent Identification Program researcher, analyzed the average standardized test scores that schools report to US News. (Those that did not report scores are not included.)

These tests are often criticized, but research shows that both the SAT and ACT are good measures of general cognitive ability and give a reasonable snapshot of the brainpower level of that school.

ACT scores were translated into SAT scores (math + verbal) using this concordance table, so that all schools could be compared using one metric. Then, an average of the 25th and 75th percentile was computed (see a full description of the methodology and limitations here).

On the following ranking, a (2) next to the school's name indicates that some or all students aren't required to supply scores; a (3) indicates that the school did not supply all students it has scores for, or did not tell US News if it had; a (4) indicates that the data is from a previous year, rather than from the most recent year; and a (9) indicates that the school may not require scores from all applicants and that it may not have submitted data for all students.

Here are the smartest public colleges in America:

Smarts Rank	School	Average    SAT
1	Georgia Institute of Technology	1385
2	University of California-Berkeley	1375
3	College of William and Mary	1365
4	United States Air Force Academy	1360
5	University of Virginia	1355
6	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	1340
6	Colorado School of Mines	1340
8	University of California-Los Angeles	1320
9	University of Maryland-College Park	1310
10	University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill	1305
11	Ohio State University-Columbus	1300
12	Binghamton University-SUNY	1294
13	University of California-San Diego	1290
14	University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign	1285
14	New College of Florida	1285
16	United States Military Academy (3)	1283
17	United States Naval Academy	1280
18	United States Coast Guard Academy (3)	1275
19	University of Pittsburgh	1270
20	SUNY-Geneseo	1269
21	United States Merchant Marine Academy	1267
22	University of Wisconsin-Madison	1265
22	University of Florida	1265
22	University of Minnesota-Twin Cities	1265
22	Missouri University of Science & Technology	1265
26	University of Texas-Austin	1260
26	University of Texas-Dallas	1260
28	University of California-Santa Barbara	1250
28	Stony Brook University-SUNY	1250
30	Clemson University	1245
30	Miami University-Oxford	1245
30	Truman State University	1245
33	University of Georgia	1240
34	North Carolina State University-Raleigh	1235
34	College of New Jersey	1235
36	University of Washington	1230
36	University of Connecticut	1230
36	CUNY-Baruch College	1230
39	Florida State University	1225
39	Auburn University	1225
39	California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo (3)	1225
42	Virginia Tech	1220
43	University of California-Davis	1210
43	Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey-New Brunswick	1210
43	University of Massachusetts-Amherst	1210
43	University of Maryland-Baltimore County	1210
47	University of Colorado-Boulder	1205
47	University of Tennessee	1205
47	University of South Carolina	1205
47	Michigan Technological University	1205
51	Purdue University-West Lafayette	1200
52	University of Delaware	1195
52	University of North Carolina-Asheville	1195
54	St. Mary's College of Maryland (3)	1190
54	University of North Carolina-Wilmington	1190
56	University of Vermont	1185
56	University of Alabama	1185
56	University of Oklahoma	1185
56	University of Alabama-Huntsville	1185
56	New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology	1185
61	Texas A&M University-College Station	1180
61	University of Central Florida	1180
63	Pennsylvania State University-University Park	1175
63	Indiana University-Bloomington	1175
65	SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry	1170
65	University of South Florida	1170
65	CUNY-Hunter College	1170
68	University of California-Irvine	1165
68	University of Iowa	1165
68	Michigan State University (3)	1165
68	University of Missouri	1165
68	Louisiana State University-Baton Rouge	1165
68	University of Arkansas	1165
68	University of Minnesota-Morris (3)	1165
75	College of Charleston (3)	1160
75	Christopher Newport University (2)	1160
77	University at Buffalo-SUNY	1155
77	Salisbury University (9)	1155
77	University of North Florida	1155
80	George Mason University (2)	1150
80	Florida International University	1150
80	Virginia Military Institute	1150
83	University of Nebraska-Lincoln	1145
83	Iowa State University	1145
83	University of Kansas	1145
83	Arizona State University-Tempe (2)	1145
83	University of Cincinnati	1145
83	University of Kentucky	1145
83	Oklahoma State University	1145
83	University of Alabama-Birmingham	1145
83	University of Louisville (3)	1145
83	James Madison University	1145
83	University of Wisconsin-La Crosse	1145
94	University of California-Santa Cruz	1140
94	New Jersey Institute of Technology	1140
94	University of Houston	1140
94	Georgia College & State University	1140
98	Appalachian State University	1135
99	University of Massachusetts-Lowell	1130
100	Colorado State University	1125
100	University of Wyoming	1125
100	SUNY-New Paltz	1125
100	CUNY-Queens College	1125
100	University of Michigan-Dearborn	1125

 

Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly included the University of San Diego, a private institution. The list has been reranked and updated with a new total of 104 schools, due to the five-way tie for No. 100. 

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