Pitt has moved up one in the Niche Best Colleges rankings to crack the top 25 out of 601 public schools in America, and was ranked the No. 1 public university in Pennsylvania out of 36. Overall, Pitt ranked 89th (up from 110th last year) out of 1,537 public and private schools in the U.S.

Pitt also ranked in the top 50 nationwide in several categories: Kinesiology and Physical Therapy (15th out of 589); Best Big Colleges (29th out of 126); Best Professors (31st out of 1,527); Criminal Justice (41th out of 706); and Chemistry (42nd out of 646).

For Pennsylvania schools, Pitt ranked first as the Best College Location (out of 106) and Best Big College (ahead of Penn State and Temple). Pitt came in at 7th for Best Colleges in Pennsylvania. The University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon and Swarthmore topped that list.

The top three public universities in the U.S. were UCLA, Michigan and Georgia Tech. Among all schools, Yale, Stanford and MIT top the list.