Catawba College is ranked 17th in the South among the nation’s 319 best baccalaureate colleges, according to the 2009 edition of “America’s Best Colleges,” published by U.S. News & World Report.
These baccalaureate colleges are ranked according to geographic region (North, South, Midwest, West).
Highlights of these rankings are published in the magazine’s Sept. 1-8 edition, available Aug. 25 on newsstands and available online at www.usnews.com/colleges, and the America’s Best Colleges guidebook available Aug. 26.
For the fourth consecutive year, Catawba has been ranked in the Top Tier of its category.
Catawba’s category in 2006 and 2007, formerly titled “Comprehensive Colleges ń Bachelor’s,” was renamed “Baccalaureate Colleges” in 2008 by U.S. News “to better clarify the broad educational mission of these schools,” according to the publication.
According to U.S. News, baccalaureate colleges “focus on undergraduate education but grant fewer than 50 percent of their degrees in liberal arts disciplines.”
Using a proprietary methodology, the annual U.S. News & World Report rankings represent the most comprehensive look at how schools stack up based on a set of up to 15 widely accepted indicators of excellence and help consumers evaluate and compare data compiled from 1,476 colleges and universities.
Institutions of higher education which are included in the publication receive an overall performance score and a series of subscores. They are assessed by their peer institutions, and ranked according to retention (six-year graduation rate and freshman retention rate), the percentage of classes under 20 and the percentage of classes of 50 or more, the student to faculty ratio, the percentage of faculty who are full time, their students’ SAT/ACT scores, the number of freshmen in the top 10 percent of their high school class, acceptance rates, the average per spending per student (on research, student services and related educational expenditures), and according to the average percentage of living alumni who gave to their school during the ’05-’06 and ’06-’07 academic years.
Founded in 1933, the weekly national news magazine U.S.News & World Report is devoted to reporting and analyzing national and international affairs, politics, business, health, science, technology and social trends.