If you are planning to attend a nursing school, how can you choose a school of your selection? How can you be sure that money you are spending for the nursing programs are not wasted on schools that offer you poor training? There are various ways to find the standing of a nursing school in the nursing education field. You may research on Internet and read Reviews on any specific schools, enquire with online nursing forums or seek information from the specific state health departments or ex nursing students, who can guide you to best nursing schools.

The most common process to find the best nursing school and, which is also followed by numerous aspiring nursing students is, by checking the Nursing School Rankings offered by various crediting agencies. Different agencies follow different methods to rank the nursing schools. Some use quality of programs, accreditation, national pass rates, scoring, salary, number of students, facilities offered by the school, quality and value, for ranking.

Though, the nursing school ranking system varies with different agencies, but, mostly all follows the process of data collection by academic experts, including professors and advisors from a survey of these schools including, information gathered from a combination of students, alumni, school administrators, recruiters, executives and other available sources.

In America at present there are two most credible Ranking agencies, U.S. News & World Report and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Research Funding, which publish reports based on the funds received. But, there are others also that offers credible nursing school ranking reports, such as The Princeton Review and The Washington Monthly.

There are also smaller, independent publications, such as StudentsReview, Rugg’s Recommendations on the Colleges and Community College Week International that publishes best academic ranking regularly. International best nursing ranking is provided by Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) based in Shanghai, China.
Following 25 Nursing schools have received best rankings subsequently on the list of theses crediting agencies:

1. Johns Hopkins University

Baltimore, MD

2. University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, PA

3. University of Washington

Seattle, WA

4. University of California–San Francisco

San Francisco, CA

5. University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill

Chapel Hill, NC

6. University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

Ann Arbor, MI

7. Duke University

Durham, NC

8. Oregon Health and Science University

Portland, OR

9. University of Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh, PA

10. Yale University

New Haven, CT

11. University of Illinois–Chicago

Chicago, IL

12. University of Iowa

Iowa City, IA

13. University of Maryland–Baltimore

Baltimore, MD

14. University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill

Chapel Hill, NC

15. Case Western Reserve University

Cleveland, OH

16. Indiana University-Purdue University–Indianapolis

Indianapolis, IN

17. Rush University

Chicago, IL

18. University of Colorado–Denver

Denver, CO

19. University of Virginia

Charlottesville, VA

20. Vanderbilt University

Nashville, TN

21. Arizona State University

Phoenix, AZ

22. Boston College

Chestnut Hill, MA

23. Columbia University

New York, NY

24. Emory University

Atlanta, GA

25. New York University

New York, NY