BOSTON (September 10, 2015) | Three America East institutions rank among the top 100 national universities in the country according to U.S. News & World Report’s Best College Rankings, which were announced on Wednesday. In addition, all eight of the conference’s public institutions once again come in among the top 100 public universities nationally in the comprehensive rankings.

Binghamton University, Stony Brook University and University of Vermont all tied for 89th among the nation’s top-100 universities. Only three other conferences had more top-100 schools among non-FBS conferences than America East.

For the third-straight year, all eight America East members that are public institutions were listed among the country’s best 100 public universities. America East is the only conference outside of the Power 5 with as many as eight institutions ranked among the top 100 of that list. Binghamton (37), Stony Brook (37) and Vermont (37) led the way, followed by University of New Hampshire (47), University at Albany (62), UMBC (84), UMass Lowell (84) and University of Maine (91).

“We continue to feel that our member institutions are among the country’s elite universities and that our conference consists of like-minded institutions with similar academic profiles and aspirations. These rankings once again affirm those beliefs,” said America East Commissioner Amy Huchthausen. “Our member institutions continue to offer their students the infrastructure, support and resources to make them successful, and as a conference we aim to provide our members with a platform upon which their student-athletes can achieve both collegiate and life success.”

In addition to the three institutions in the top 100, five other America East schools were slotted in the top 168 among national universities with UNH (103), Albany (129), UMBC (156), UMass Lowell (156) and Maine (168) all receiving high marks.

UMBC has been once again recognized in two specialty categories, tying for sixth with Yale and one slot ahead of Stanford as an elite school for undergraduate teaching. UMBC was also recognized as the fourth-most innovative school, just behind Stanford and MIT, for boasting innovative improvements in terms of curriculum, faculty, students, campus life, technology or facilities.

Three America East schools also ranked among the top 100 schools for veterans based on participation in federal initiatives helping veterans and active-duty service members apply for, pay for and complete their degrees. Binghamton and Vermont tied for 72nd while UNH was 84th.

To rank colleges and universities, U.S. News and World Report first categorizes schools by their mission, based on the breakdown of types of higher education institutions as refined by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 2010. Those in the national universities group offer a full range of undergraduate majors, plus master’s and doctoral programs, and emphasize faculty research.

Once schools have been divided by category, data is gathered from each college on up to 16 indicators of academic excellence. Each factor is assigned a weight that reflects the publication’s judgment about how much a measure matters. Finally, the colleges and universities in each category are ranked against their peers, based on their composite weighted score.

About the America East Academic Consortium (AEAC): The AEAC is a voluntary academic partnership of the nine universities that comprise the America East Conference. The AEAC seeks to leverage the distinctive academic strengths of America East member institutions to encourage and support inter-institutional academic and administrative collaboration.