The Princeton Review, the premier provider of test preparation services, has released their rankings list of the top colleges, along with the 2015 edition of The Best 379 Colleges, based on their surveys of 130,000 students attending those schools. The average number of students responding to surveys at each school is 343.
According to The Princeton Review:
The survey has more than 80 questions in four main sections: "About Yourself," "Your School's Academics/Administration," "Students" and "Life at Your School." We ask about all sorts of things, from "How many out-of-class hours do you spend studying each day?" to "How do you rate your campus food?" Most questions offer an answer choice on a five-point scale: students fill in one of five boxes on a grid with headers varying by topic (e.g., a range from "Excellent" to "Awful"). All of our 62 ranking list tallies are based on students' answers to one or more of these questions with a five-point answer scale. The five-point grid—which is called a Likert scale—is the most commonly used measurement for this type of survey research: consensus-based assessment. Statisticians consider it most accurate because it presents equal numbers of positive and negative positions.
For a complete breakdown of the survey process, click here.
Northeastern University (MA) earned the #1 spot on the list, "Best Career Services" (a ranking category the Princeton Review created at the urging of a college parent in 2007). The college ranked tops for "Best Science Facilities" – and for the 2nd consecutive year – was California Institute of Technology: its students gave their lab facilities the strongest ratings in the survey. The school at which students gave their professors the highest marks as teachers was Reed College (OR).
"Every college in our book offers outstanding academics," said Robert Franek, the guide's author and Princeton Review Senior VP / Publisher. "These colleges differ significantly in their program offerings, campus culture, locales, and cost. Our purpose is not to crown one college 'best' overall or to rank these distinctive schools 1 to 379 on any single topic. We present our 62 ranking lists to give applicants the broader base of campus feedback to choose the college that's best for them."
For more information on The Princeton Review's services for students, contact The Princeton Review's Westport, CT office at 246 Post Rd E, Westport, CT 06880 (888) 759-7737.