SMC earned 121 ranking badges in the 2027 College Factual rankings: 15 in the top 1%, 81 in the top 5%, 16 in the top 10% and 9 in the top 15% of the schools in each ranking. Its highest placement is #1 of 305 in Most Popular for Biological & Physical Science, a top 1% award.
Key facts
Badges earned: 121 (2027 edition)
In the top 1% / top 5%: 15 / 81
Highest placement: #1 of 305, a top 1% award
Fields of study with a badge: 23
Placements this edition: 228
Badge cutoff: a top 15% placement in a ranking
Source: IPEDS 2025; College Scorecard July 2026; College Factual rankings 2027. Data as of: July 2026.
How Many Ranking Badges Has Santa Monica College Earned?
Santa Monica College holds 121 ranking badges across 23 fields of study, 96 of them in the top 5% or better; each badge is an award for placing in the top 15% of a ranking. It has no placements this edition in College Factual’s athletics or online-program rankings. Each ranking is recalculated when updated data becomes available. The current ranking cycle is 2027 edition. A check mark sits in the highest award tier the school reached. Read about our data sources and methodologies. If you are an administrator interested in using our badge program to showcase your college’s strengths, please contact us.
Count by Award Level
Award Level
Badges
Top 1%
15
Top 5%
81
Top 10%
16
Top 15%
9
Total
121
What Is Santa Monica College Known For?
Santa Monica College is best known for Visual & Performing Arts: 15 of its 117 traditional-student awards are in that field. Its top-ranked majors include Biological & Physical Science, Liberal Arts General Studies and Business Administration & Management.
College Factual’s rankings are based primarily on data from the U.S. Department of Education, 2027 edition. Santa Monica College appears in 228 of the College Factual rankings covered on this page.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), serves as the core of our data about colleges.
Some other college data, including much of the earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
by our College Data Analytics Team