Catawba College is one of the nation’s best institutions for undergraduate education again this year, according to The Princeton Review.
The education services company features the school in the new 2015 edition of its annual college guide, “The Best 379 Colleges,” that hit newsstands Aug. 5.
Only about 15 percent of America’s 2,500 four-year colleges and only four colleges outside the U.S. are profiled in the book, which is The Princeton Review’s flagship college guide.
It includes detailed profiles of the colleges, rating scores for all schools in eight categories and ranking lists of top 20 schools in the book in 62 categories.
The scores are based on The Princeton Review’s surveys of 130,000 students attending the colleges. The 80-question survey asks students to rate their schools on several topics and report on their campus experiences at them. Topics range from assessments of their professors as teachers to opinions about their school’s library, career services, and student body’s political leanings.
A Catawba student surveyed said, “it’s difficult to describe the typical student, because there is such diversity at Catawba College.”
Another noted, “Catawba has almost anyone you can imagine, it’s a wide array of different cultures of people that go here.”
One student explained the college was “a place where you can truly discover who you are through exposure to a variety of thoughts and perspectives.”
In a “Survey Says” sidebar in the book’s profile on Catawba, The Princeton Review lists topics that Catawba students surveyed for the book were in most agreement about in their answers to survey questions. The list includes: “Students get along with local community,” “Very little drug use” and “Theatre is popular.”
“Catawba College offers outstanding academics, which is the chief reason we selected it for the book. We base our choices primarily on data we obtain in our annual surveys of administrators at these schools and at hundreds of other colleges,” said Rob Franek, Princeton Review’s senior vice president and publisher and author of “The Best 379 Colleges.”
“We take into account input we get from our staff, our 27-member National College Counselor Advisory Board, our personal visits to schools and the sizable amount of feedback we get from our surveys of students attending these schools. We also work to maintain a wide representation of colleges in the book by region, size, selectivity and character,” he added.
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro also made Princeton Review’s list of the nation’s best universities for undergraduate education. It’s the 16th consecutive year UNC-Greensboro has made the list.
“We are pleased that Princeton Review continues to recognize UNCG as a comprehensive, student-centered institution of excellence. We strive to offer our students a supportive learning environment that encompasses challenging academic programs, opportunities for hands-on research with outstanding faculty, and service-learning experiences that enhance their education while benefiting the community,” said Chancellor Linda P. Brady.
UNCG students have earned nationally competitive scholarships and fellowships in recent years, including Gates Cambridge, Luce, Goldwater and Fulbright awards. The university’s undergraduates praise the “high quality of education at a significantly reduced rate, while having the smaller classes allowing closer bonds between faculty and students,” according to Princeton Review’s student surveys. Nontraditional students appreciate the “great support system for adult students.”
UNCG also made Princeton Review’s regional list of the 138 Best Colleges in the Southeastern U.S. Institutions make the regional lists based on academic excellence and independent student surveys.