Berkeley being No. 1, six UC campuses ranked among top 10 U.S. public universities

The University of California, Berkeley, has led five other UC campuses among the top 10 public universities in annual rankings of U.S. schools of higher learning.

While UC Berkeley has kept its ranking as the No.1, according to the 2016 "America's Best Colleges" list released on Tuesday by U.S. News and World Report, the University of California, Los Angeles, tied the University of Virginia in 2nd place.

Meanwhile, UC Barbara placed eighth, UC Irvine ninth and UC Davis and UC San Diego tied in 10th position.

UC Berkeley typically performs best in rankings when academic excellence, faculty quality and research are weighted heavily, said a news release from the school in northern California.

Again this year, it ranked highly for its reputation in business and engineering, in speciality fields within these disciplines, as well as among high school guidance counselors.

In the 2016 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), which was based mainly on the quality of faculty and research and released in mid-August by China's ShanghaiRanking Consultancy, UC Berkeley placed at No. 1 among public schools and third among public and private schools worldwide.

However, among all the public and private research universities across the United States ranked for the annual assessment of academic excellence by U.S. News, a media company based in New York City, UC Berkeley placed 20th along with Georgetown University in Washington D.C. and Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

Overall, Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, took the top spot and Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, remained 2nd; Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, held onto 3rd place, joined by the University of Chicago; Columbia University in Upper Manhattan, New York City, and Stanford University in Stanford, California, dropped to 5th; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, held onto 7th; Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia placed 8th and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, stayed at No. 10.

The U.S. News rankings assess nearly 1,800 U.S. colleges and universities on 16 criteria that include academic excellence, academic reputation, student selectivity, faculty resources, graduation and retention rates, financial resources and alumni giving. Endit