Rankings, Colleges | featured news

Princeton scores top marks and edged past Williams College in Massachusetts and California's Stanford University in a new ranking of the top colleges in the United States released on Wednesday.

LSU and Alabama are the top two teams in the country one month before their game in Tuscaloosa. The SEC West rivals held the first two spots in The Associated Press college football poll released Sunday as the second-ranked Crimson Tide jumped past No. 3 Oklahoma.

The visual appeal of spectacular campuses comes through varying combinations of awe-inspiring architecture, landscaping and surroundings.

Harvard University received the No. 1 spot on US News & World Report's 2012 rankings of top US academic research institutions, followed by Princeton University and Yale University.

Harvard has pulled ahead of Princeton in the latest edition of the U.S. News & World Report university rankings, while a stronger emphasis on graduation rates drove other changes.

Georgia beat out Pennsylvania State University, West Virginia University and University of Florida which were the top party schools over the ...