Princeton Review ranks Flagler among the best

Historic City News has learned that Flagler College is one of the country’s best institutions for undergraduate education, according to The Princeton Review.

The education services company features Flagler College in the new 2010 edition of its popular guidebook, “The Best 371 Colleges.”

Only about 15 percent of America’s 2,500 four-year colleges and two Canadian colleges are profiled in the book, which is The Princeton Review’s flagship annual college guide. It includes detailed profiles of the colleges with institution rating scores in eight categories, plus ranking lists of top 20 schools in 62 categories based on The Princeton Review’s surveys of students attending the colleges.

“We commend Flagler College for its outstanding academics, which are the primary criteria for our choice of institutions included in the book,” said Robert Franek, Princeton Review’s vice president for publishing. “We make our choices based on institutional data we gather about schools, feedback from students attending them and input from our staff, who visit hundreds of colleges a year.”

In its profile on Flagler College, The Princeton Review praises the school for its strong academic programs in selected fields of study and quotes extensively from Flagler students who were surveyed by The Princeton Review staff for the book. Among their comments about their campus experiences: Students “like the small-school feel” of Flagler College, an intimate liberal arts institution with “an excellent education program, including one of the best deaf education programs in the country.” Other students stated that Flagler undergrads “actually get the chance to have a personal relationship with professors who are always there to help. They take a genuine interest and concern in the students.”

The Princeton Review’s 62 ranking lists in “The Best 371 Colleges” are based entirely on its survey of 122,000 students (about 325 per campus on average) attending the colleges in the book. The 80-question survey asks students to rate their schools on several topics and report on their campus experiences at them. Topics range from student assessments of their professors, administrators, financial aid and campus food.

In a “Survey Says. . .” sidebar, The Princeton Review lists topics that Flagler College students surveyed for the book were in most agreement about in their answers to survey questions. The list includes: “low cost of living,” “fraternities and sororities are non-existent” and “almost no one smokes.”