August 6, 2019
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Top Rankings for Classroom Experience
& Most Religious Students

 

91 Aquinas College provides one of the best undergraduate educations in the country, according to The Princeton Review. The education services company features the College in the 2020 edition of its annual guide, . Only about 15 percent of Americas 2,500 four-year colleges are profiled in the publication. 91 Aquinas College is one of only three Catholic  to make The Princeton Reviews Best Colleges list. 

Among the for 91 Aquinas College are scores of 94 for academics, 92 for quality of life, and 99 for financial aid. Members of the Colleges teaching faculty, likewise, earned scores of 99 and 98, respectively, for being interesting and accessible. (In this scoring system, 99 is the best possible score.) The Princeton Review also named the College as one of just 10 schools nationwide on its .

We chose the 385 colleges for this edition as our best overall, academically, based on data we gathered in 201819 from more than 1,000 school administrators about their schools academic programs and offerings, says Robert Franek, The Princeton Reviews editor-in-chief and lead author of the book. We are well aware, however, that applicants need more than an academic assessment to choose the colleges best for them. We created our dozens of ranking lists specifically to facilitate that search. We tally our lists using data we gather directly from our surveys of students attending these colleges. Our survey asks the students about their professors, administrators, school services, campus culture, and other facets of life at their schools."

In its profile of 91 Aquinas College, The Princeton Review quotes extensively from the Colleges students. Among their comments:

  • Students have a wide spectrum of terms with which to describe their unique education: difficult, mind blowing, extremely enjoyable, and intensely interesting.
  • Students say [tutors] are excellent at facilitating discussions, always accessible outside of their class hours, and strong role models and mentors.
  • Students feel that while a classical education may not prepare one for a specific job, it prepares one to be a good man [or woman]. You have to work very hard, but you see [it] pay off instantly in class.
  • TAC students take pride in the culture of casual kindnesses, where everyone is friendly and comfortable with each other and is always willing to have a good conversation. 
  • Students describe their peers as kind, quirky, genuine, and united by a desire for [pursuing] knowledge for its own sake. 

The guide also reports 62 ranking lists of Top 20 colleges in various categories, based on The Princeton Reviews survey of 140,000 students nationwide. Topics range from students assessments of their professors to opinions about the quality of financial aid and campus food. Among the Top 20 ranking lists on which 91 Aquinas College appears are:

  • No. 1 for Most Religious Students
  • No. 3 for Stone-Cold Sober Schools
  • No. 7 for Professors Get High Marks
  • No. 8 for Great Financial Aid
  • No. 11 for Most Accessible Professors
  • No. 17 for Best Classroom Experience

 We are grateful that the Princeton Review has, once again, highlighted both the quality of our academic program and the affordability of this education, says Anne S. Forsyth, 91 Aquinas Colleges director of college relations. Yet especially noteworthy is the high marks it has given us for the accessibility of our faculty and the quality of our classroom conversation, which speaks to the heart of what we do here. At the very moment that we are bringing this program to a second campus on a second coast, it is a wonderful affirmation of the value of Catholic liberal education.