The 22 colleges that have students with the highest SAT scores

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Business Insider released its annual list of the best colleges in America, emphasizing schools with high graduation rates and early-career earnings, rather than focusing solely on glamour statistics, like reputation and selectivity.

But that's not to say that the caliber of the students doesn't play an important role in what makes a school great. So we expanded our ranking to the top-100 schools in the country and filtered our data, the most recent available from the Department of Education, to find which colleges boast students with the highest average SAT scores. For schools that traditionally accept the ACT, those scores have been translated to the equivalent SAT score. 

With an average score of 1534, CalTech topped the list, jumping 40 spots from its ranking on the main list. University of Chicago and MIT followed, moving up 21 and 3 spots, respectively, from their positions on the original ranking. Read on to see the full list of the schools with the highest SAT scores in the US. 

22. Brown University

Location: Providence, Rhode Island

Average SAT score: 1425

Brown students have the freedom to personalize their liberal-arts course study, a practice the school calls "open curriculum." Brown was founded in 1764 on the then-unprecedented idea of accepting students regardless of religion. It was also the first Ivy League school to establish an undergraduate engineering program in 1847.

21. Tufts University

Location: Medford, Massachusetts

Average SAT score: 1428

Tufts University is made up of three undergraduate schools: the School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Engineering, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts. Students have the option to choose from about 150 majors and minors and participate in one or more of Tuft's 341 student organizations. In the Experimental College, students go beyond the typical classroom environment, taking courses such as "Circus and Society" or "American Witches."

20. Carnegie Mellon University

Location: Pittsburgh 

Average SAT score: 1432

Located in the heart of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University carries on the traditions of Scottish founder and steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. Besides academic excellence, that also includes Pipes and Drums, a bagpipe-only band, and Kiltie Band, a quirky marching band that dons kilts for every performance. The school is also known for its top-notch engineering program, and offers majors in everything from chemical engineering to engineering and public policy.