SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — Their football games are known as the Holy War, but between the University of Utah and Brigham Young University, which college is better academically?

According to a report published earlier this week by U.S. News, the answer is neither.

U.S. News unveiled its list of best colleges for 2024 on Sunday, Sept. 17. The top national universities consisted of your usual suspects. The prestigious likes of Princeton University, MIT Harvard, Stanford, and Yale are still the top schools nationwide.

Overall, the report analyzed 439 national universities. The first Utah school makes the list at #115 and it’s a tie between the University of Utah and Brigham Young University.

The study of U.S. colleges and universities weighted metrics such as graduation rates, peer assessment, financial resources, graduation rate performance, student-faculty ratio and faculty salaries among others.

According to a comparison of the two Utah universities, the U of U had a significantly higher acceptance rate and better 4-year graduation rate than BYU. However, BYU’s applicants leaned slightly higher in overall ACT and SAT test scores and tuition was considerably cheaper, especially for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Being a private institution, BYU also offers smaller class sizes than its Holy War rival but the U has more faculty per student.

So which University is right for you? It depends on what you’re looking for.

The University of Utah ranked high in the nation for its entrepreneurship program (No. 7) and its video game development program (No. 3). The U also tied for No. 31 for its nursing program. Meanwhile, U.S. News studies found BYU to be one of the Best Value Schools in the country (No. 16) and its accounting program is in the Top 3 nationwide.

If neither school interests you, or maybe you’re a little too far away from campus, Utah State University also made U.S. News’ best colleges list, ranking at No. 269.

Interested in knowing more about how the Utah schools compare? You can find U.S. News’ 2024 Best Colleges list here.