Methodology: Best Undergrad Teaching

For the first time, in the spring of 2009, U.S. News asked top academics as part of the regular U.S. News peer assessment survey to name the schools that they think have faculty with an unusually strong "commitment to undergraduate teaching." These new rankings are the schools whose faculty and administrators are committed to teaching undergraduate students in a high-quality manner. College presidents, provosts, and admissions deans were asked to nominate up to 10 colleges in their U.S. News America's Best Colleges ranking category with a "commitment to undergraduate teaching."

 This item on the peer survey enabled college officials to pick schools within their U.S. News America's Best Colleges ranking category that have a strength in undergraduate teaching that the public should be aware of and that is not always noticeable in a college's regular peer assessment survey results and its overall U.S. News America's Best Colleges ranking.

The "commitment to undergraduate teaching" rankings are based solely on the responses to this section of the peer survey. The following lists, organized by U.S. News ranking categories, contain the 80 colleges that received the most nominations by top college officials for having an unusually strong "commitment to undergraduate teaching." They are ranked in descending order based on the number of nominations they received.