Ranking Season Yields Accolades for TCNJ

With the opening of every fall semester comes a flurry of news related to the release of various national rankings of colleges and universities. At The College of New Jersey, as is the norm at most top academic schools, many look forward to seeing where we stack up each year.

Well, the numbers are in and, once again, TCNJ is uniformly held in high regard. The College has been named one of the nation’s top schools, according to rankings published in the 2007 edition of Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges. TCNJ joins the University of Virginia, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the College of William and Mary, and the University of California at Los Angeles as the only state-supported institutions among the 75 schools that Barron’s lists in its “Most Competitive” category. Others among those garnering that distinction were Duke University, Stanford University, and the eight Ivy League schools.

"The College of New Jersey, with its public mission and focus on undergraduate education, occupies a unique place among the best colleges and universities nationally,” President Gitenstein said. “This recognition provides validation of the extraordinary work being done by so many people at TCNJ and of the tremendous opportunity that is currently available to our state’s best and brightest students.”

Beth Paul, interim provost, explained, “By offering dynamic academic programs and hiring extremely talented faculty and staff members, TCNJ has created a supportive and challenging learning environment. What we offer is appealing to a broad range of prospective students, and that is reflected in the number and quality of the applications for admission that we receive each year.”

On the heels of the Barron’s news came word that TCNJ once again is the top public college in U.S. News & World Report's list of Best Universities-Master's category for the northern region of the country. For the 2007 edition, the College is ranked fifth in the standings among both public and private institutions in its category, where 165 schools were rated.

Most recently, TCNJ ranked sixth on The Princeton Review’s “Happiest Students” list, edging out Yale University (No. 10), the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (No. 12), and Amherst College (No. 13), among others. TCNJ also emerged as one of the top 20 (No. 18) on the “Most Beautiful Campus” ranking, one spot ahead of Swarthmore College.