Campus News
Westminster College received another top ranking this month as one of only two Missouri colleges and universities to be named to the “Top 100 America’s Best Colleges for Women.”
This follows on the heels of Westminster’s recent 39th place ranking in Forbes magazine’s list of “Top Fifty America’s Best Colleges.”
Westminster was selected for this new honor by Cosmo Girl, the #1 selling teen magazine at the newsstand with the fastest growing readership among college freshmen and sophomore women. Cosmo Girl has a total readership of eight million readers and is targeted at high school and college age women.
“We are pleased that Westminster is receiving recognition for the opportunities and learning environment we provide for women,” says Dr. George B. Forsythe, President of Westminster. “We have women leaders in many of our top professional leadership positions and student organizations and are quite proud of the job we do of serving our women students.”
More than 600 U.S. colleges and universities were evaluated in cooperation with The Princeton Review and the Top 100 Colleges were selected on the basis of 19 factors.
Eleven of the criteria were from answers The Princeton Review received directly from the opinions of 80,000 female college students on: average class sizes; quality of professor instruction; student friendliness; campus safety; career/job placement services; individual student happiness; city or town suitability; internship popularity; average lab size; degree of social and ethnic diversity on campus; and recreational/athletic facilities.
Another eight data points collected by The Princeton Review from evaluated schools are: student-to-faculty ratio less than 12:1; accessibility of financial aid; award of need-based financial aid; women exceeding 50 percent of faculty; above-average number of women’s center services; above-average number of women’s club sports teams; experiential learning opportunities with entrepreneurs for student; and programs specifically designed to help entrepreneurial students launch businesses.
The only other Missouri school to make the list is Washington University in St. Louis.
“We pride ourselves at Westminster on building the people, the resources and facilities to provide the kind of global community environment where every student, male or female, can pursue his or her professional and personal growth and be inspired to make a difference in the world,” says President Forsythe.