Scripps College is featured in The Princeton Review‘s 2018 edition of “The Best 382 Colleges.” The annual “Best Colleges” guide offers two-page profiles on each school featured and, rather than rank the colleges academically, presents the top-20 colleges in 62 categories ranging from academics and financial aid to quality of life, career services, classroom experience, and more. The top-20 lists are based on The Princeton Review‘s survey of 137,000 students attending the 382 colleges.
Scripps was named to nine of the lists, indicating that students who were surveyed expressed a very high consensus of opinion about these topics: #1 for Best College Dorms; #5 for Most Liberal Students; #8 for Best Quality of Life; #12 for Most Beautiful Campus; #14 for Best Classroom Experience; #15 for Best Career Services; #15 for Election? What Election?; #16 for Best Campus Food, and #21 for Best Schools for Internships.
In The Princeton Review profile, students surveyed communicated that the benefits of the women’s college experience are “undeniable” and that “to be surrounded by a group of strong, educated women is a very empowering experience.” Students praised Scripps professors as “accomplished in their fields, challenging, and interesting people” who are always willing to take time after class to speak to an individual student or to explain a particular aspect of a lecture. Aside from the required Core class that all first-year students must take, almost every class has fewer than 20 students, and students report that there is “lots of dialogue about interesting and important issues.”
Students also wrote that they valued the emphasis on interdisciplinary learning and the idea that “no academic field exists in a vacuum.” “This is huge when you’re trying to apply things to the real world or imagine where your career might take you,” says a student.
Students described themselves as “engaged, outgoing, and passionate” and cited that most are “politically aware.” They note that the connection to the other Claremont Colleges, which are adjacent to campus, means “the social scene is not isolated to a single campus,” and that allows for “a diversity of types of personalities.”
“We picked the 382 ‘best’ colleges for our book primarily for their outstanding academics: we highly recommend each one,” said Robert Franek, The Princeton Review‘s editor-in-chief and the book’s lead author. “However, we know applicants need far more than an academic rating or ranking to find the college that will be best for them. We created our 62 ranking lists to help narrow that search. They are based entirely on data we gather beyond academics that gives insight into what the schools’ enrolled students say about their professors, administrators, school services, campus culture, and student life. In the end, it’s all about the fit.”