Houston, May 10
Two Texas schools — University of Texas (UT), in Austin and Rice University in Houston — have joined the ranks of Ivy League institutions, according to Forbes.
The two institutions are "attracting the smartest students and plaudits from employers".
The development comes as a piece of great news for Indian international students who are enrolled in large numbers in these two Texas schools, especially after India surpassed China as top source of International graduate students recently, according to Open Doors Report.
The Forbes' researchers said the evaluation came as the traditional Ivy League institutions have "faced a barrage of complaints in recent years" related to admissions policies, grade inflations at several elite schools and university officials' responses to on-campus protests regarding the Israel-Hamas War.
From there, Forbes evaluated schools with a minimum of 4,000 students to even out comparisons between smaller liberal arts schools and larger research universities. Forbes then analysed schools with high standardised test scores and a minimum of 50 per cent of school applicants submitting them for admission considerations.
The researchers also used an admissions rate threshold of 20 per cent or below for private institutions and 50 per cent or below for public schools. After receiving a final list of 42 schools, Forbes spoke with hiring manager respondents about each one to see which schools' students rose to the top of prospective employers' priority lists.
UT sits with an undergraduate student population just below 40,000, with a 31 per cent acceptance rate. Over at Rice, the private Houston university has an undergraduate enrolment just over 4,200, with a 9 per cent acceptance rate.
In the 50th percentile for SAT and ACT scores, UT's admitted students earned an average 1370 on the SAT and a 30 for the ACT. An estimated 85 per cent of prospective students also submitted those scores for admission considerations.
At Rice, admitted students earned an average 1540 on SAT and 35 on ACT, when looking at 50th percentile figures. Among its prospective students, 76 per cent of them submitted those test scores as part of their applications.
Rice has long been considered an Ivy League school of the south. With an acceptance rate of only 8.7 per cent, the private research university located in Houston is extremely selective.
UT Austin is one of the largest universities in the nation with an acceptance rate of 31 per cent and average ACT score between 29 and 34.
UT Austin has been in the spotlight lately during on-campus protests that resulted in dozens of arrests over the war in Gaza as students ask the school to divest in companies that support Israel as well as a state-wide ban on diversity, equity and inclusion resources that resulted in the school laying off about 50 employees and shutting down DEI offices.
Below is the full list of Forbes' new Ivy League schools.
Public Schools: Binghamton University, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Florida, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Maryland-College Park, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, University of Texas-Austin, University of Virginia, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Private Schools: Boston College, Carnegie Mellon University, Emory University, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, Northwestern University, Rice University, University of Notre Dame, University of Southern California, Vanderbilt University.