Duke ranked 16th among most stressful colleges

In a year when Duke places among the top 10 for best American universities and as the basketball team is headed toward a fourth national championship, the University is coming out on top of another pool: America's most stressful colleges.

News and opinions Web site The Daily Beast released its list of 50 Most Stressful Colleges late Sunday night. Duke places 16th among them, and topping the list are Stanford and Columbia Universities at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively.

The Beast's blog post on the rankings notes that a 2009 Professional Psychology study found that 6 percent of its undergraduate study subjects and 4 percent of its graduate subjects noted that they "seriously considered attempting suicide" in the last year.

Duke immediately follows Johns Hopkins University on the list and precedes Cornell University. But students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill—which placed 28th in the U.S. News rankings—may not be feeling the pressure as much as those at overall lower-ranked colleges, as UNC almost closes The Daily Beast's list at No. 43.

To determine where the country's most pressured students are attending, The Daily Beast gathered the top 50 universities as determined by U.S. News and World Report and applied the following criteria:

The cost: Financial pressure is a huge stress-inducer. Tuition plus room and board, weighted at 35 percent. With 2009-2010 data from the National Center on Education Statistics.

Competitiveness: How academically rigorous is the school? Weighted at 35 percent, with 2010 data from U.S. News & World Report.

Acceptance rate: More competitive schools generally produce a more competitive student body. Weighted at 10 percent, with 2010 data from U.S. News & World Report.