If you're looking for exclusivity, academic excellence, and exposure to the brainiest students in the US, you may want to check out the universities below.We recently rankedthe smartest colleges in America, andprivate institutions dominated the top of the list. Only 17 public schools broke into the top 100. Here, we take a closer look at the highest-ranked private schools in terms of sheer student brainpower.In order to determine a school's overall smarts,Jonathan Wai, aDuke University Talent Identification Program researcher,analyzedthe average standardizedtestscores that schools report toUS 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 andgive a reasonable snapshot of the brainpower level of that school.ACT scores were translated into SAT scores (math + verbal) usingthis 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 limitationshere).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 private colleges in America: Smarts RankSchoolAverageSAT1California Institute of Technology15452University of Chicago15153Princeton University15053Harvard University15053Yale University15056Massachusetts Institute of Technology15007Columbia University14858Harvey Mudd College14809Stanford University147510Northwestern University147011Dartmouth College146011Washington University in St. Louis146011University of Notre Dame146011Vanderbilt University146011Rice University146011Pomona College146017Duke University145518University of Pennsylvania145019Tufts University144520Amherst College144020Swarthmore College144022Brown University (3)143522Carnegie Mellon University143522Williams College143522Bowdoin College (2)143526Johns Hopkins University143026Carleton College143028Cornell University142029Georgetown University141029Wellesley College141029Claremont McKenna College141032Haverford College140032Washington and Lee University140032Wesleyan University140035Vassar College139536Northeastern University139037Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute138938Middlebury College138538Hamilton College138540University of Southern California138041Case Western Reserve University137541Reed College (9)137541Bard College at Simon's Rock (2)137544Scripps College136745Emory University136546Oberlin College136347Boston College136047New York University136047Tulane University (3)136047Colgate University136051Cooper Union135552University of Rochester (2)135052Brandeis University135052Macalester College135055Colby College (2)134555Bates College (2)134557Grinnell College134057Bryn Mawr College134057Barnard College134060Davidson College (3)133560Smith College (2)133562Wake Forest University (2)132562University of Miami132562Colorado College (2)132562Mount Holyoke College (2)132562Connecticut College (2)132567Whitman College132168Kenyon College132068Wheaton College132070Lehigh University131570Worcester Polytechnic Institute (2)131570Franklin and Marshall College (2)131573University of Richmond131073Union College (NY) (2)131075College of the Holy Cross (2)130575Pitzer College (2)130575Occidental College130575Hendrix College130575St. John's College (NM) (2)130575Villanova University130581Southern Methodist University130081Stevens Institute of Technology130081Bucknell University130081Denison University (2)130081Rhodes College130081Hillsdale College130087George Washington University129588Boston University129089Brigham Young University-Provo128589University of Tulsa128589Centre College128589Gettysburg College (2)128589St. Olaf College128589Lawrence University (2)128589Santa Clara University128596Bennington College (2)128097Dickinson College (2)127898Lafayette College127598Bard College (2)127598St. John's College (2)127598Lewis & Clark College (2)1275SEE ALSO:The 104 Smartest Public Colleges In AmericaJoin the conversation about this story
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