WASHINGTON, PA (Aug. 1, 2011)—Washington & Jefferson College is one of the nation’s best institutions for undergraduate education, according to The Princeton Review in the 2012 edition of its annual book, The Best 376 Colleges.
The publication will be available in bookstores nationwide and via online booksellers beginning tomorrow (Aug. 2).
“It is an honor to again be recognized by The Princeton Review,” said W&J President Tori Haring-Smith, Ph.D. “W&J has a talented and extremely dedicated faculty and staff, and I could not be more proud of our students and alumni. What they are accomplishing in the classroom and as graduates is truly exceptional. This designation is a reflection of the hard work of so many in our campus community.”
About 15 percent of America’s 2,500 four-year colleges are profiled in the book, which is The Princeton Review’s flagship college guide. It includes detailed profiles of the colleges with rating scores for all schools in eight categories, plus ranking lists of top 20 schools in the book in 62 categories based on The Princeton Review’s surveys of students attending the colleges.
In its profile on W&J, The Princeton Review quotes extensively from W&J students who were surveyed for the book. Among their candid comments on the College, one student notes, W&J boasts “a great track record with law school admissions.” Another feels the academic atmosphere is “wonderfully rigorous.”
Says Robert Franek, The Princeton Review's vice president of Publishing, “we commend W&J for its outstanding academics, which is the primary criteria for our selection of schools for the book. Our choices are based on institutional data we collect about schools, our visits to schools over the years, feedback we gather from students attending the schools and the opinions of our staff and our 28-member National College Counselor Advisory Board. We also work to keep a wide representation of colleges in the book by region, size, selectivity and character.”
The lists are entirely based on The Princeton Review's survey of 122,000 students (about 325 per campus on average) attending the colleges in the book and not on The Princeton Review's opinion of the schools. The 80-question survey asks students to rate their own schools on several topics and report on their campus experiences at them. Topics range from assessments of their professors to opinions about their financial aid and campus food. Other ranking lists are based on student reports about their student body's political leanings and race/class relations.
The Princeton Review explains the basis for each ranking list in the book and at www.princetonreview.com/college/college-rankings.aspx
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