Southland colleges rank high

Crosstown rivals UCLA and USC tied in 24th place, along with the University of Virginia, in the latest rankings of national universities by U.S. News & World Report.

Harvard and Princeton tied in first place for the second year in a row, followed by Yale.

Tied with Dartmouth in 10th place was Caltech, whose archrival, MIT, was sixth.

Other Southern California schools listed among the top performers were UC San Diego in 38th place with Lehigh; UC Santa Barbara in 41st with the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; and UC Irvine, which was tied with the University of Miami in 44th place.

Among national liberal arts colleges, Pomona College was tied in fourth place with Middlebury; Claremont McKenna College was tied with Vassar in 10th; and Harvey Mudd College, which is also part of the Claremont consortium, was ranked 12th.

Loyola Marymount University was listed a “best value” school and it moved up to No. 3 in regional universities, LMU spokesman Mason Stockstill said. Last year, LMU ranked No. 4 among regional universities.

LMU’s College of Science and Engineering tied with five other universities as the No. 25 school for undergraduate engineering programs.