August 19, 2004

“America’s Best Colleges” guide taps Flagler
for the eleventh consecutive year

(St. Augustine, FL) — For the 11th year, Flagler College has been included in U.S. News and World Report's "America's Best Colleges," one of the preeminent college guides available.

In the 2005 edition of the magazine, Flagler ranked 19th on the list for "Best Comprehensive Colleges-Bachelor's" in the Southern region. U.S. News’ yearly magazine and print editions are widely used tools for students and parents looking at colleges and universities throughout the country.

Flagler also was ranked third in the South for “Lowest Acceptance Rate” in the magazine’s “Key Criteria in Judging Schools” section. Acceptance rate is a ratio of the number of students accepted to the number who apply.

The U.S. News ranking comes days after Flagler learned that it had been included for a second year in The Princeton Review’s list of best colleges in America. This year’s college guide, “The Best 357 Colleges,” was released this week by Random House and is based on surveys of more than 110,000 students.

“We are extremely pleased and proud of the ranking and the recognition,” Flagler President William T. Abare, Jr., Ed.D. said. “The ranking by U.S. News & World Report and the listing in “The Best 357 Colleges” are important because they convey to the general public the quality of our academic programs, the caliber of our outstanding faculty and students, and the dedication and commitment of our talented staff. They are also a good indication of the College’s growing reputation.”

Flagler is also the only private college in Florida listed on “America’s 100 Best College Buys,” compiled by Institutional Research and Evaluation Inc. U.S. News ranks more than 1,400 colleges in comparable categories for its annual issue and book. The colleges in the comprehensive category, which are broken down by region, focus on undergraduate education but grant fewer than 50 percent of their degrees in liberal arts disciplines like history, religion and political science.

Seventy-five percent of a school's ranking is based on a formula that uses objective measures of academic quality such as graduation rates, class sizes and student test scores, and the remaining 25 percent is based on a peer assessment survey.

The full rankings may be found at U.S. News’ and Princeton Review's Web sites (click on the images in this article): www.usnews.com and www.princetonreview.com.