Forbes magazine has named the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) and Rice University in Houston as two of the best colleges in the country, ranking them with the esteemed Ivy League schools.
Forbes created its own rating standards, excluding out prestigious colleges and typical Ivy League schools. Schools were assessed according to criteria such as drawing in top performers, employer satisfaction, and selective admissions.
Along with private colleges like Johns Hopkins University and Carnegie Mellon University, UT Austin and Rice University are joined on Forbes' list by other reputable public universities like the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia.
In addition, since Indian students currently make up the majority of international students enrolled in graduate programmes in the US, this honour is especially meaningful to them. There are significant numbers of Indian students at Rice University and UT Austin.
While Rice University is a private university with an extremely tough admissions procedure and an acceptance rate of just 8.7%, UT Austin is a sizable public university with an acceptance rate of 31%.
Which are the other universities included in the IVY League?
Several prestigious universities are featured in Forbes' "New Ivies" list, including the University of Florida, University of Michigan—Ann Arbour, University of Virginia, Binghamton University, and Georgia Institute of Technology.
Forbes lists Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Notre Dame, Rice University, Georgetown University, and the University of Southern California as five private universities that are comparable to Ivy League schools, in addition to these public universities.
