As many of y'all know I am beyond proud to be a boilermaker. I love Purdue, and I know that I chose the right school. Something that I bring up whenever I talk about Purdue with other people is how high it is ranked compared to other schools. I get asked regularly when I am home if Purdue is an ivy league school, and although it isn't, we have some top programs that beat out ivy leagues.
So in this article, I decided to compile all of Purdue top rankings for our overall university and individual schools. Although I am biased, all the rankings I have included are factual and are numbers that our university presents to prospective students or rankings I have found online.
1. Top University for producing Fortune 500 CEOs
Purdue is seen as a more engineering based school, but in fact, we have many distinguished alumni that go on to become CEOs. For example, do you know the small chain called McDonald's? Yeah, the CEO is a Purdue grad. He is a Mechanical Engineering graduate, so as you can see we provide both top engineers and world famous CEOs.
2. 9th most innovative university in the United States
Purdue just opened a new innovation and design center right on campus where students can go and just create and build projects for classes or for their own enjoyment. Since its opening in December, we have had over 1,400 projects go through the center. Another thing that is great about Purdue is that if you design something, then the university doesn't own any of it even if it was built on campus. They want our students innovating and not worrying about who owns the product.
3. 128 countries represented in the student population.
Purdue has one of the most diverse college campuses I have ever seen. In my freshman class alone we have over 78 countries represented. In our overall student population, nearly 25% of our students are international students which is amazing.
4. #10 best college town in America.
The town of Lafayette and West Lafayette is an adorable downtown area with cute shops and fun things to do. My other favorite thing about these two towns is the fact that the mayors of these towns are best friends and they used to be partners when they worked for the police department. You will be experiencing a good ol' American town when coming to Lafayette.
5. #23 school in the US with the best return on investment.
College is expensive nowadays. Kids are spending over 20 thousand dollars a year just to go to an in-state school which is insane. I know something I was looking for when I was going to college is a school that will pay off in the end. By going to a top university and having a school with a top career development program, you definitely get that here.
6. #2 Best athletic facility in the US
Being a Big Ten school means getting great facilities for our athletes to practice in. Even though Purdue has had a few rough seasons with football, we are definitely on the rise. Along with that Drew Brees just donated a ton of money to build more athletic facilities so thank you, Drew.
7. #3 best career development center in the US.
When you go to a good school that means you will have some of the most amazing career development programs in the nation, and Purdue definitely has that. Majority of our schools have an over 90% hiring rate within 6 months of graduation.
8. #5 Best Public Institution
How can this one not impress everyone? Purdue overall is one of the most impressive schools in the nation, and it is proven by this Wall Street Journal statistic. This university overall has a great balance between academic life and student life which makes us the 5th Best Public Institution.
9. #1 In biological and agricultural engineering
Our engineering school is a top engineering school overall, but especially in Biological and Agricultural Engineering. Since our ag department is a top-level school as well, when you combine the two programs, you get a top-level school.
10. Purdue is ranked #2 for Best Colleges for English Majors
Our Liberal Arts programs seem to get overshadowed by the STEM programs we have at the school, but we have a top English program here as well. SO if you're looking to do anything English related, Purdue is the school for you.
11. Elliot Hall Of Music is ranked #5 in rankings of The 25 Most Amazing College Theatres
Fun fact, Elliot Hall of Music and Radio City Music Hall have been competing for years on who has a bigger facility. Anytime either one of them does a renovation, they add more chairs than the other. So as you can imagine, we definitely have a beautiful hall.
12. Brian Lamb School of Communication is ranked #17 globally.
Brian Lamb School of Communication is named after the founder of C-SPAN, who went to Purdue. Lamb loves his hometown of Lafayette, and in fact, he put one of the two C-SPAN archives here. You get some amazing hands-on experience here, in fact, many of our broadcasting students will actually go to Big Ten events and broadcast there for the university.
13. #7 MBA at a US public institution.
Many people put Krannert School of Management aside when thinking of rankings of programs due to the fact our friends down south (IU) have Kelley School of Business which is also a top program. Krannert in fact also has a top program for management programs and has a great MBA program.
14. Purdue is ranked 10 in the nation for Engineering overall.
Many people know this fact already, but we have a top engineering program here. We get students from all over the world who want to get a top-level education which you can find here.
15. Purdue is the greatest school ever
This one is a bit of a personal opinion, but it is still true. Boiler Up, Hammer Down, Hail Purdue.
