Allison Oster
Public Relations Manager
(626) 815-4518
APU Ranks High Among Nation's Best Colleges
September 10, 2007
AZUSA, Calif. –
For the first year, Azusa Pacific University secured a place in the most prestigious category of the U.S.News & World Report’s America’s Best Colleges 2008 rankings, categorized alongside premier national universities such as Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. APU ranked in the third tier of this national category. Previously, APU was ranked within the Western Universities-Master’s category, enjoying prominent placement and receiving acknowledgement for outstanding first-year and service-learning programs.
According to U.S.News & World Report, schools in the national universities group include 262 American universities (164 public and 98 private) that offer a wide range of undergraduate majors, as well as master’s and doctoral degrees; many strongly emphasize research. The move to this higher category comes as a result of the university’s increased offerings, including the addition of APU’s seventh doctoral degree, the Ph.D. in Higher Education. This resulted in reclassification by the Carnegie Foundation, which informs ranking results.
“Our new classification places Azusa Pacific University in the deep water of the national universities group,” said APU President Jon R. Wallace, DBA. “This is a result of our world-class faculty in undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs. Transformational teaching built on exemplary scholarship has become an APU hallmark.”
The national universities classification considers eight primary areas, including peer assessment, retention and graduation rates, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, alumni giving, and graduation rate performance. Rankings are derived 75 percent from objective measures, and 25 percent from a reputation survey distributed to presidents, provosts, and deans of admission at participating schools. For more information, visit www.usnews.com.
In additions, for the fourth consecutive year, The Princeton Review designated APU among as 1 of 123 colleges in the 2008 Best in the West category. Schools selected as part of this category met The Princeton Review’s rigorous standards for academic excellence and reflect students’ comments, supplied anonymously. According to The Princeton Review, their goal remains simple: to identify stand-out colleges and universities within each region.
“Our 2016 Academic Vision places students as our first priority,” said Michael M. Whyte, Ph.D., provost. “This recognition further reflects APU’s commitment to providing the highest quality classroom instruction in order to prepare our students for the challenges of the 21st century.”
The Princeton Review annually analyzes academic standards and conducts student surveys to raise awareness of academically strong colleges for students looking to study in a particular geographic area. For a complete listing of results, visit www.princetonreview.com.
Featured in TIME magazine and ranked as one of the nation’s best by U.S.News & World Report and The Princeton Review, Azusa Pacific is a comprehensive, Christian, evangelical university, committed to God First and known for excellence in higher education. Azusa Pacific’s main campus lies just 26 miles northeast of Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Valley, while its seven Southern California regional centers bring convenience and extend quality programming. The university offers more than 50 areas of undergraduate study, 23 master's degrees, and 7 doctorates to a total student population of more than 8,100.
