- There are many college rankings and ways to discover the best colleges in the US.
- These colleges enroll the brightest students in the country, according to SAT and ACT scores.
- The California Institute of Technology took first place, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Which schools have the brightest young minds in the country?
To find out, we asked Jonathan Wye, Assistant Professor and Endowed Chair at the University of Arkansas. Created a ranking exclusively for Business Insider of the smartest US colleges and universities based on the schools' average standardized scores.
While these tests are often criticized, research shows that both Sat and PRETEND they are good measures of general cognitive ability, since they are based on the individual's ability to reason. Therefore, these scores give a reasonable picture of a school's overall intelligence.
This ranking included all the schools that report their average SAT and ACT scores to the government. ACT scores were converted to the SAT scale for the purposes of this analysis.
See more details on methods and limitations here.
Once again, the Pasadena-based California Institute of Technology topped the list and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, University of Chicago, Vanderbilt University and Yale University rounded out the top five schools.
Keep scrolling to see the 50 smartest colleges in America.
Abby Jackson contributed to an earlier version of this story.