USC and UCLA are tied for 23rd in this year's national college rankings put out by U.S. News and World Report on Tuesday.
The Los Angeles universities should be used to it, considering they've been tied in the rankings three out of the past four years. Last year was the exception, with UCLA ranking 23rd and USC 25th.
This year, they share the 23rd spot in a three-way tie with Carnegie Mellon University because Los Angeles is nothing if not generous.
If you’re wondering how this list is made, the U.S. News and World Report annual rankings are compiled based on criteria like student's SAT scores, alumni giving rates, graduation rates and student/faculty ratio. It's sometimes criticized for not taking the right factors into account, but that doesn't stop hordes of parents and students from basing their application decisions on which school fares well year to year.
While we are certainly at liberty to give ourselves a collective pat on the back, it's worth noting that our friend to the north, Stanford, is the highest ranked school in the state, tied for fourth. Still, Pasadena's Caltech is no slouch, tied for 10th place.
In total, the UC system had a good showing with six schools in the top 50 national universities. UC Berkeley is ranked 20th overall, in addition to being named the top public university (UCLA is second on that list), UC Santa Barbara is in slot 37, UC Irvine and UC San Diego are tied for 39 and UC Davis is 41.