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Washington Monthly Ranks Mars Hill College 18th Among Baccalaureate Colleges
Mars Hill College has ranked 18th among the top 100 baccalaureate colleges in the nation on rankings released August 27 in Washington Monthly magazine.
This is the third year that Washington Monthly has published rankings. Mars Hill’s 2012 ranking is up three places from last year, when it ranked 21st in the baccalaureate category. For 2011, the first year of the rankings, Mars Hill ranked 17th.
Washington Monthly originally published its rankings as an alternative to the U.S. News & World Report rankings, and says that its rankings are based on better measures of student success. Washington Monthly rankings are based on three broad categories: social mobility (recruiting and graduating low-income students), research (producing cutting-edge scholarship and Ph.D.s), and service (encouraging students to give something back to their country). Within those broad categories, each college receives points based on individual characteristics. Out of a possible 100 points, Mars Hill received a total score of 69.
Washington Monthly not only gives an overall ranking for all three categories, it ranks each school on individual characteristics within the categories. Mars Hill received its best rankings on community service participation and hours served, coming in 15th in the nation among baccalaureate colleges. Mars Hill also ranked well on the number of bachelor’s recipients who go on to receive doctorates, relative to school size. On that measure, Mars Hill ranked 20th. The college ranked 27th for a combined measure of the number of staff supporting community service, relative to the total number of staff; the number of academic courses that incorporate service, relative to school size; and whether the institution provides scholarships for community service.
Dr. Dan Lunsford, president of Mars Hill College, said he believes the Washington Monthly rankings are very valuable in helping students choose a college based on the total educational experience. “Students who choose a small liberal arts college like Mars Hill are looking for an educational experience that includes not just a academic excellence, but an emphasis on personal attention, ethics and service as well,” he said. “The Washington Monthly rankings are extremely valuable because they highlight those areas that are often overlooked in traditional measures, but are in reality, very important in the educational equation.”
posted August 30, 2012