GREENVILLE, PA – Thiel College has been listed as a best comprehensive college in U.S. News & World Report's America’s Best Colleges 2007 guide, which will be released Monday, Aug. 21 and is one of 222 outstanding colleges and universities in the Northeast that The Princeton Review recommends to college applicants in the new 2007 edition of its book, “The Best Northeastern Colleges.”

Thiel College was named to the top tier of the northern comprehensive colleges category. Comprehensive colleges are described as institutions that focus on undergraduate education and offer a range of degree programs in the liberal arts, which account for fewer than half of their bachelor’s degrees, and in professional fields such as business, nursing, and education. There are 320 comprehensive colleges, ranked within four regions: North, South, Midwest, and West.

As a top northern comprehensive college, Thiel shares company with other Pennsylvania schools such as Mercyhurst, Grove City, Elizabethtown, Messiah, Cedar Crest, Wilson, Alvernia, Mount Aloysius and Delaware Valley colleges and University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown.

Tying at 31st with Bay Path College (Mass.) and Concordia College (N.Y.), Thiel earned an overall score of 37.

U.S. News & World Report arrived at the rankings by evaluating peer assessments, student retention rates (six-year graduation rate and freshman rate), graduation rates, percentage of classes with fewer than 20 students, percentage of classes with 50 or more students, student/faculty ratio, percentage of full-time faculty, SAT/ACT scores, freshmen high school percentage rankings, acceptance rates financial resources and alumni giving.

Highlights of the college rankings are scheduled for publication in the Aug. 28 edition of U.S. News & World Report magazine, available for newsstand purchase on Monday, Aug. 21 – the same day that the America’s Best Colleges guidebook also is available. 

Thiel College is one of 222 outstanding colleges and universities in the Northeast that The Princeton Review recommends to college applicants in the new 2007 edition of its book, “The Best Northeastern Colleges.”

 “Opportunities to get involved are ripe for the taking here, especially for students looking to kick-start the campus’s interest in politics and diversity. If your interests match Thiel’s strong structure, this Ohio Valley school is worth serious consideration,” The Princeton Review notes in a two-page profile on Thiel College.

“The schools in this book all have excellent academic programs.  We chose them from several hundred Northeastern schools we considered based on institutional data we collect about the schools, our surveys of students attending them, and our visits to schools over the years.  We also worked to have a wide representation of colleges in the book by size, selectivity, character and locale,” said Robert Franek, Princeton Review’s Vice President of Publishing.

The book includes schools in the District of Columbia and eleven states: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.  

The Princeton Review surveyed 58,000 students at the 222 colleges in this edition of the book (about 250 per campus).  The 80-question survey asked students to rate their schools on several matters – from the teaching ability of their professors to their opinion of the campus food – and answer questions about themselves, their fellow students, and their campus life.  Comments from surveyed students pepper the book's narrative profiles of the colleges. 

The 2007 edition of “The Best Northeastern Colleges” is the third edition of the book.  Unlike The Princeton Review’s annual “Best 361 Colleges,” “The Best Northeastern Colleges” does not have ranking lists based on student surveys.

The Princeton Review is a New York-based company known for its test preparation, educational support, and college admission services.  It is not affiliated with Princeton University or ETS.