AAU membership is more _stable_ than college ranking tables. A college will not suddenly enter or exit the AAU due to some ranking criteria. Instead, it gets accepted in and stay in for decades [1]. To me AAU is the most reliable criteria for “top 60” reputable colleges. If my son gets into one of them, I would be grateful.
In 1900, on the backdrop of the proliferation of small, for-profit degree-granting colleges, I think the chiefs of venerable universities decided to form a “exclub” to distinguish themselves. This is my interpretation of the stated motivation of AAU’s founding.
— comparison with U.S.News etc .. Within the U.S. the most influential ranking table for undergrad is the U.S.News. I think it gives an idea of the undergrad acceptance rate of each college. I would say that U.S.News national ranking table is the most referenced “brandometer”. In contrast, AAU is arguable the most important academically-oriented brandometer.
SY.C pointed out that U.S.News national ranking table doesn’t focus on graduate-level research, and promotes many small colleges with limited graduate schools and limited research.
I would say academic reputation is what I tend to notice. For that, AAU is more useful than U.S.News ranking.
We should not rely exclusively on AAU… other rankings are also relevant.
The control of AAU membership is very different from U.S.News, or THE, or QS, or Shanghai ranking. [1]
— key observations on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Universities
- 64 American private/public universities + only 2 Canadian universities.
- At least 4 universities either left or were voted out.
- [1] AAU membership is by invitation only, which requires an affirmative vote of three-fourths (75%) of current members. invitations to new members are rare, reflected in the joining years for each member.
- “The largest attraction of the AAU for many schools, especially nonmembers, is prestige.”
It’s interesting to see the geographical concentration of member universities. Most in north-eastern quadrant. If you want to know the top universities in a given state, sort the table by state ! 14 states have a single AAU member university, while dozens of states have zero. CA, NY, MA are the richest states.
You can also sort the table by joining year. The earlier, the more venerable, with rare exceptions.
— specific universities, sorted by name, with joining year
- 1929 Austin
- 2012 Boston University
- 2010 Georgia Tech
- NYU
- 1916 OhioState
- Rutgers
- Rice
- 2001 Stony Brook
- 2021 Tufts
- UIUC
- 2019 Utah
- 1950 UWashington
- — outside the AAU:
- trinity college
- NorthEastern
- UBC #BritishColumbia
- UWaterloo
- Pace university