While HLS spokesperson Michael Armini declined to comment on Harvard’s place in the rankings, he said the rankings favored smaller schools. HLS is larger than both Yale and Stanford—which makes it harder for Harvard to maintain a low student-to-faculty ratio.

Armini said the faculty had considered reducing its student population last year—a move that would have improved the school’s ranking—but voted down the proposal because they felt education at the school would suffer.

The second-ranked Business School had shared first place with Stanford two years ago before falling to second last year.

Although Harvard had a slightly larger number of graduates employed three months after graduation, Stanford boasted a lower acceptance rate and higher average scores on graduate admissions exams, as well as higher starting salaries for graduates.

In doctoral programs in the sciences, which were not ranked last year, Harvard tied for second place in mathematics, chemistry and biological sciences and shared third place with four other schools in physics.

The University’s doctoral programs in applied math, geology and computer science were not among the top five in their fields.

In U.S. News’ most recent college rankings, Harvard and Yale tied for second place behind Princeton. New rankings for that category will come out in September.

—Staff writer Elisabeth S. Theodore can be reached at theodore@fas.harvard.edu.