Fordham University boosted its academic and quality-of-life ratings in the latest version of the Princeton Review’s influential guide to the best colleges, released on Tuesday.
The college guide, The Best 373 Colleges: 2011 Edition, rates colleges and universities on campus life, academics, selectivity, financial aid and other areas.
Compared to last year, the University’s overall academic rating jumped five points, from 79 to 84, and its quality of life score jumped from 75 to 79. Fordham was rated 75 for having interesting professors and 79 for having accessible professors, compared to ratings last year of 71 and 73, respectively.
“We commend Fordham University for its outstanding academics, which is the primary criteria for our selection of schools for the book,” said Robert Franek, the Princeton Review’s senior vice president for publishing and author of the college guide. The guide includes only 15 percent of 2,500 four-year colleges in the United States and two colleges in Canada.
The college guide includes comments from students who praised Fordham for its sense of community, its excellent business and honors programs, vast internship opportunities, core curriculum, small classes and engaging professors. Said one student, a finance major: “Each of my professors has made me interested in their subject, even if I was only taking the class out of requirement. I get the impression that they are genuinely interested in what the students think.”
The University’s financial aid rating improved slightly from last year, going from 73 to 75, and its selectivity score remained constant at 92.
Fordham also earned a place on the Princeton Review’s list of the best 218 colleges in the Northeast. That guide, The Best Northeastern Colleges: 2011 Edition, goes on sale August 10.
In addition to its ratings, The Best 373 Colleges contains 62 “top 20” lists that rank the colleges in particular aspects of academics, quality of life, social scene, demographics, extracurriculars, and other areas. There is no overall ranking for any college.
The ratings, on a scale of 60 to 99, are based on institutional data and a student survey. Academic factors include class size, student quality, use of teaching assistants, the amount of class discussion, and the amount of students’ study time outside class. Quality of life factors include the campus’s beauty, safety, and location; the quality of food and dorms; ease of navigating the campus and dealing with the administration; and overall student happiness.
For more information about the rankings and ratings, visit http://princetonreview.com
—Chris Gosier
