U.S. News & World Report’s undergraduate college rankings now include undergraduate nursing programs (conferring the BSN degree). This year is the first time BSN programs have been included in the U.S. News rankings. There are 694 programs in the BSN rankings.
The BSN rankings are based on the average of scores received from surveys of top academics and officials at nursing schools or department. These officials rated the overall quality of undergraduate BSN programs they were familiar with on a 1-to-5 scale. Schools are included and ranked in this standalone peer assessment survey if they have bachelor’s level accreditation by either the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education or the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing. These regionally accredited institutions must have recently awarded at least 35 BSN degrees.
Deans and senior faculty were asked to rate the academic quality of peer institutions’ BSN programs on a 5-point scale. The University of Pennsylvania was the top-rated nursing program (4.6/5), followed by both Duke University (4.5/5) and the University of Washington in Seattle (4.5/5) ranked second and the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) ranked fourth (4.4/5).
