August 01, 2017 | News & Stories Staff


Students gather for a meal at Calvin's newly renovated Commons Dining Hall.

Calvin College is one of the nation’s best institutions for undergraduate education, according to the Princeton Review. The education services company features the school in the recently published 2018 edition of its annual college guide, “The Best 382 Colleges.” 

Only about 15 percent of the nation's four-year colleges and two colleges outside the U.S. are included in the guide. Five other colleges and universities in the state of Michigan join Calvin on the list (Albion College, Hillsdale College, Kalamazoo College, Michigan Tech and the University of Michigan).

"We chose Calvin College for this book because it offers outstanding academics,” said Robert Franek, Princeton Review's Editor-in-Chief and author of “The Best 382 Colleges.” “Our selections are primarily based on our surveys of administrators at several hundred four-year colleges. We also visit dozens of colleges each year and give considerable weight to opinions of our staff and our 24-member National College Counselor Advisory Board. Most importantly, we look at valuable feedback we get from each school’s customers—our surveys of students attending them. We also keep a wide representation of colleges in the book by region, size, selectivity and character."

In a “Survey Says” sidebar in the book’s profile on Calvin, the Princeton Review lists topics that Calvin students surveyed for the book were in most agreement about in their responses. The list includes: “internships are widely available,” “students love Grand Rapids, MI,” “easy to get around campus” and “recreation facilities are great,” to name a few.

Students who were surveyed highlighted their professors’ credentials and accessibility. Students said that professors have “a desire to share their wealth of experiences and passions with the students” and are “extremely talented, interesting, and connected in their specific fields.” Students also shared that instructors are also “masters at integration of education and Christianity,” making the classes at Calvin less about teaching the requisites for getting a job and “more about how to continue to learn about the field and how Christianity should figure into it.”

About The Princeton Review
The Princeton Review is a leading tutoring, test prep and college admission services company. Every year, it helps millions of college- and graduate school-bound students achieve their education and career goals through online and in person courses delivered by a network of more than 4,000 teachers and tutors, online resources, and its more than 150 print and digital books published by Penguin Random House. The Princeton Review is headquartered in New York, NY. The company is not affiliated with Princeton University. For more information, visit www.princetonreview.com. Follow the company on Twitter @ThePrincetonRev.

About Calvin College
Founded in 1876, Calvin College is a top-ranked liberal arts college that equips its 3,800 students from 48 U.S. states, 60 countries and five Canadian provinces to think deeply, to act justly and to live wholeheartedly as Christ’s agents of renewal in the world. Calvin is proud to offer 100+ majors and programs, including graduate-level offerings in accounting, education, and speech pathology and audiology. Calvin students engage in intensive internships, community-based service-learning, and significant research that results in publishing and presenting alongside world-class faculty. And the college’s 400-acre campus, located in the vibrant city of Grand Rapids, serves as a launching pad for students who, in any given year, participate in 40 faculty-led off-campus programs on six different continents. Discover more at www.calvin.edu.

In addition to being included in the Princeton Review’s “Best 380 Colleges,” Calvin is also recognized as:

One of the country’s best and most interesting institutions
2018 edition of the Fiske Guide to Colleges

A small college or university strong in business and also strong in engineering
2018 Fiske Guide for Preprofessionals

The Best Colleges For Your Money
Money magazine

#1 among Midwest regional colleges (tied with Taylor University)
U.S. News & World Report's 2017 Best Colleges Guidebook

#1 among Midwest regional colleges for strong commitment to undergraduate teaching
U.S. News & World Report's 2017 Best Colleges Guidebook


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