The ranking of the best colleges for sociology degrees remained remarkably stable for this year. There were no dropouts among the top 10 universities in the field. Among the biggest movers were, Stanford, who moved up to number 1 from number 4 in the prior year. University of Chicago made the biggest move, gaining eight places, now ranked in the second spot. This reflected the increased reputational ranking of the university as a whole after it came in at number 2 in the overall university rankings.
Other interesting changes on this list include: Michigan, who remained strong at number 3, after capturing the top spot for sociology previously. Among the Ivies, Harvard moved to number 6 from 3, Princeton moved above Harvard to number 5, and Columbia was unchanged at 11. State universities capture half of the top 10 with Michigan followed by Texas at 4, UCLA 7, Wisconsin 8, and UC Berkeley at 9.
This year, sociology as a field of learning has become increasingly important, as the trend of polarization has continued. Sociology is a field that if used in a constructive fashion, may help the body politic become more cohesive in focusing on empowering diverse populations to thrive together, rather than against one another, in a complex economic and social environment. In compiling these rankings of the best colleges for sociology, we considered programs promoting diverse intellectual inquiry as a positive ranking factor.
Ranking The Best Colleges for Sociology Majors
For this year, we expanded our coverage of sociology to over 330 major universities and colleges. This listing includes the top 50 this year, up from the top 20 last year. Also included in this ranking is an indicator of the change from the previous year.
| Rank | Change | College | City | State | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | +3 | Stanford University | Palo Alto | CA | 96.52 |
| 2 | +8 | University of Chicago | Chicago | IL | 96.14 |
| 3 | -2 | University of Michigan | Ann Arbor | MI | 93.74 |
| 4 | +2 | University of Texas | Austin | TX | 89.57 |
| 5 | +2 | Princeton University | Princeton | NJ | 88.40 |
| 6 | -3 | Harvard University | Cambridge | MA | 87.32 |
| 7 | -5 | University of California - Los Angeles | Los Angeles | CA | 87.18 |
| 8 | 0 | University Of Wisconsin - Madison | Madison | WI | 86.93 |
| 9 | -4 | University of California - Berkeley | Berkeley | CA | 83.41 |
| 10 | -1 | Duke University | Durham | NC | 81.72 |
| 11 | 0 | Columbia University | New York | NY | 80.94 |
| 12 | +1 | Nortwestern University | Evanston | IL | 78.51 |
| 13 | +4 | Cornell University | Ithaca | NY | 76.81 |
| 14 | +1 | The Ohio State University | Columbus | OH | 76.31 |
| 15 | - | Penn State | University Park | PA | 74.94 |
| 16 | -2 | Yale University | New Haven | CT | 73.84 |
| 17 | +3 | Indiana University | Bloomington | IN | 73.73 |
| 18 | -6 | University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill | Chapel Hill | NC | 73.07 |
| 19 | - | New York University | New York | NY | 70.58 |
| 20 | -1 | University of Washington | Seattle | WA | 70.26 |
| 21 | - | University of Pennsylvania | Philadelphia | PA | 66.27 |
| 22 | - | University of Maryland | College Park | MD | 64.37 |
| 23 | - | Brown University | Providence | RI | 63.74 |
| 24 | -8 | University of Florida | Gainesville | FL | 63.08 |
| 25 | - | University of Notre Dame | South Bend | IN | 60.38 |
| 26 | - | Johns Hopkins University | Baltimore | MD | 60.03 |
| 27 | - | Massachusetts Institute of Technlogy | Cambridge | MA | 60.00 |
| 28 | - | University of Arizona | Tuscon | AZ | 59.86 |
| 29 | - | Texas A&M University | College Station | TX | 55.31 |
| 30 | - | Arizona State University | Tempe | AZ | 55.23 |
| 31 | - | Vanderbilt University | Nashville | TN | 55.13 |
| 32 | - | University of California - Davis | Davis | CA | 54.50 |
| 33 | - | Michigan State University | East Lansing | MI | 54.35 |
| 34 | -16 | University of Virginia | Charlottesville | VA | 54.05 |
| 35 | - | University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign | Champaign | IL | 53.81 |
| 36 | - | Rice University | Houston | TX | 52.25 |
| 37 | - | Rutgers University | Piscataway | NJ | 52.24 |
| 38 | - | Florida State University | Tallahassee | FL | 52.07 |
| 39 | - | University of Colorado - Boulder | Boulder | CO | 51.02 |
| 40 | - | University of Southern California | Los Angeles | CA | 50.51 |
| 41 | - | University of Georgia | Athens | GA | 50.27 |
| 42 | - | University of Iowa | Iowa City | IA | 49.98 |
| 43 | - | University of California - San Diego | San Diego | CA | 48.49 |
| 44 | - | Emory University | Atlanta | GA | 48.20 |
| 45 | - | University of Oregon | Eugene | OR | 45.68 |
| 46 | - | University of Minnesota | Twin Cities | MN | 42.24 |
| 47 | - | University of Cincinnati | Cincinnati | OH | 42.14 |
| 48 | - | University of Massachusetts - Amherst | Amherst | MA | 41.91 |
| 49 | - | University of California - Santa Barbara | Santa Barbara | CA | 40.50 |
| 50 | - | Boston University | Boston | MA | 39.97 |
We used our RealRank methodology in compiling this ranking and you can find more details on how we compile and analyze the data in the About page.