ASU Earns Eighth Consecutive Year in Princeton Review

A press release from Angelo State University has announced that for the eighth consecutive year, ASU has been listed by the Princeton Review as one of the country’s best institutions for undergraduate education. This honor only goes to about 15 percent of the nation’s 2,500 four-year colleges.

The education services company features Angelo State in the 2017 edition of its annual college guide, “The Best 381 Colleges,” published Monday, Aug. 29, by Random House. The guide is the Princeton Review’s (TPR) flagship publication and includes detailed profiles of colleges with rating scores for all schools in eight areas, based on surveys of 143,000 students nationally.

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“Making the Princeton Review’s ‘Best Colleges’ list again is awesome because it’s based mainly on feedback from our students,” said ASU President, Brian J. May. “Our faculty and staff work hard to make sure our students not only get a great education, but also have plenty of opportunities for personal growth and preparation for their future careers. Everything we do is geared toward providing our students a positive and comprehensive college experience, and recognition by the Princeton Review is a direct indication from our students that we are succeeding in that.”

Texas Tech University System Chancellor, Robert Duncan said, “I am immensely proud to see Angelo State University continually recognized by The Princeton Review as the high-quality, student-centered university it is. Congratulations, and thank you, to Dr. May and Angelo State’s faculty and staff for their hard work and devotion to student success.”

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TPR also listed Angelo State among “great schools” for two of the top 20 most popular undergraduate majors, agriculture and nursing. 

The 80-question TPR survey asks students to rate their own schools on numerous topics and report on their campus experiences. Topics range from assessments of their professors to campus activities. Based on those questions, ASU students showed up on the guide’s list of Most Conservative Students at No. 16 nationally.

“Outstanding academics” are the chief reason a university is included in the annual college guide, according to Robert Franek, author of “The Best 381 Colleges” and TPR’s senior vice president and publisher.

“We make our selections primarily on data we obtain through our annual surveys of administrators at several hundred four-year colleges,” Franek said. “Additionally, we give considerable weight to observations from our school visits, opinions of our staff and our 24-member National College Counselor Advisory Board, and an unparalleled amount of feedback we get from our surveys of students attending these schools.” 

ASU was one of 13 Texas universities to make the 2017 list. The other institutions were Austin College, Baylor University, Rice, SMU, Southwestern University, TCU, Texas A&M University, Trinity University, University of Dallas, University of Houston, University of Texas and University of Texas at Dallas. The list includes five public and eight private institutions.

The latest guide states that “Angelo State offers students a ‘very affordable’ education coupled with a ‘wide range of degree programs.’ Importantly, a ‘small-town feel’ permeates the campus, and students are quick to assert that ‘you’re not just a number at Angelo State.’”

In addition to making The Princeton Review’s list of “The Best 381 Colleges,” ASU was among the institutions in 15 western states listed in TPR’s “Best in the West” website feature at www.princetonreview.com/best-regional-colleges.aspx.