The U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., jumped from sixth place to third on the annual U.S. News and World Report list of the nation’s top liberal arts colleges released Sept. 17, maintaining its top spot among service schools despite several changes to how the rankings were compiled.

Among the results of those changes: The U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., leapt from a six-way tie for 18th place last year to sole possession of the No. 7 spot, edging the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., which finished eighth. West Point was tied for ninth last year with Claremont McKenna College in California (annual tuition and fees: $64,150).

The academies took the top three spots in the publication’s public school rankings for liberal arts colleges, ahead of fourth-place Virginia Military Institute. The U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., ranked first among regional colleges in the North, with the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y., taking third on that list, after New York City’s Cooper Union (tuition and fees: $46,820).

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Williams College and Amherst College, both in Massachusetts, took top honors among liberal arts colleges. Princeton and MIT went 1-2 in the national university rankings, with Harvard and Stanford tied for third.

West Point did claim victory in the engineering category, besting fellow service academies with a fourth-place showing among engineering programs at schools that do not offer doctorate degrees. Navy took fifth on that list, while Air Force finished seventh. The top spot went to the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts (tuition and fees: $61.802).

West Point also finished best among the academies on the undergraduate economics program rankings, albeit much farther down the list – tied for 72nd overall ahead of Navy (tied for 80th) and Air Force (tied for 99th). Harvard and MIT took top honors.

Navy has been the top-ranked service academy on the overall list since 2018.