WILSON, N.C. — Barton College is one of the best colleges in the Southeast according to the nationally known education services company, The Princeton Review. It is one of 135 institutions The Princeton Review recommends in its “Best in the Southeast” section of its web site feature, “2012 Best Colleges: Region by Region,” that posted August 1, 2011 on PrincetonReview.com.
“Barton College is delighted to be included once again in the Princeton Review’s ‘Best Colleges in the Southeast,’” shared Dr. Norval C. Kneten, president of Barton College. “We have enjoyed this recognition for a number of years, and this most recent announcement serves as a testament to the commitment of our faculty and staff and to the academic accomplishments of our students. The Barton Experience provides an ideal combination of challenging academic pursuits, meaningful internships, and engaging activities that prepare our students for informed and productive lives upon graduation. And, that is Barton’s ultimate goal, to inspire our students’ futures.”
The 134 colleges The Princeton Review chose for its “Best in the Southeast” designations are located in 12 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. The Princeton Review also designated 220 colleges in the Northeast, 153 in the Midwest, and 121 in the West as best in their locales on the company’s “2012 Best Colleges: Region by Region” lists. Collectively, the 629 colleges named “regional best” constitute about 25% of the nation’s 2,500 four-year colleges.
“We’re pleased to recommend Barton College to users of our site as one of the best schools to earn their undergrad degree,” said Robert Franek, Princeton Review’s Senior VP / Publisher. “We chose it and the other terrific institutions we name as ‘regional best’ colleges mainly for their excellent academic programs. From several hundred schools in each region, we winnowed our list based on institutional data we collected directly from the schools, our visits to schools over the years, and the opinions of our staff, plus college counselors and advisors whose recommendations we invite. We also take into account what students at the schools reported to us about their campus experiences on our 80-question student survey for this project. Only schools that permit us to independently survey their students are eligible to be considered for our regional ‘best’ lists.”
For this project, The Princeton Review asks students attending the schools to rate their own schools on several issues — from the accessibility of their professors to quality of the campus food — and answer questions about themselves, their fellow students, and their campus life. Comments from surveyed students are quoted in the school profiles on The Princeton Review site. The profiles also have a “Survey Says” list that reveals topics about which students surveyed at the school were in highest agreement.
The schools in The Princeton Review’s “2012 Best Colleges: Region by Region” web site section are also rated in six categories by The Princeton Review. The ratings, which appear on the school profiles, are scores on a scale of 60 to 99. The Princeton Review tallied these scores based on institutional data it obtained from the colleges in 2010-11 and/or student survey data. The Princeton Review explains the criteria for each rating score on its site at princetonreview.com/college/college-ratings.aspx
The Princeton Review does not rank the 629 colleges in its “2011 Best Colleges: Region by Region” list hierarchically or by region or in various categories. However, some schools in this list that also appear in The Princeton Review book, “The Best 376 Colleges: 2012 Edition” may appear on some of the Princeton Review ranking lists of “top 20 colleges” in 62 categories that are unique to that book. They are based entirely on the Company’s surveys of students at the 376 schools in the book.
The Princeton Review, headquartered in Framingham, Mass., with editorial offices in New York City and test preparation locations across the country and abroad, is not affiliated with Princeton University, and it is not a magazine.
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Questions? Please contact Kathy Daughety, director of public relations at Barton College, at 252-399-6529 or email: kdaughety@barton.edu.