This Might Cause a Fight or Two: All Hudson Valley Colleges, Ranked

Apparently I've been lied to my entire life.

Growing up in the Hudson Valley, I thought I was surrounded by illustrious colleges and universities. When I was a kid, I felt like I was seeing a celebrity when a SUNY New Paltz student would walk by me down main street. Don't get me wrong: I understand that the Harvards and Stanfords of the world have a bit of a leg up on us, but to say I was surprised by my findings when I compared how our local schools compared to their national competition is an understatement. One school was so low-ranked that I had to resort to Google reviews just to get some feedback.

Don't worry, all is not lost. We do still have some of the top colleges in the country, but not nearly as many as I imagined. So before we get to the rankings, let me explain how I broke everything down.

First, we are only ranking 4-year colleges on this list. Next, I used rankings from US News & World Report, The Princeton Review, and WalletHub to compile a comprehensive score that reflected the most variables possible. There were some unicorn schools, too (hello Culinary Institute of America and the United States Military Academy at West Point) that required some extra metrics. Finally, since not all of our schools made any of these lists, I literally went to Google reviews to get some feedback from the public. So, let's start big, and end with the college that shocked me by being absent from literally every list I could find.