St. Edward’s Receives Recognitions from U.S. News  and The New York Times
This fall also marked the fourth straight year the university has been named one of "America's Best Colleges" by U.S. News & World Report. In the 2007 list released this past August, St. Edward's was one of only four Texas universities to rank among the top 25 master's-granting institutions in the West.
Among the criteria U.S. News looks at when ranking schools are:
- Peer assessment
- Retention
- Faculty resources
- Student selectivity
- Financial resources
- Alumni giving
St. Edward's has been particularly successful in increasing undergraduate enrollment while simultaneously raising the freshman retention rate. Current undergraduate enrollment stands at 3,282 — up from 3,047 in 2005-2006. And, the freshman retention rate for this year is 84.9%, a huge leap of more than 10% over the retention rate of 73.5% in 1999.
As President George E. Martin notes, "Enrollment and retention are good measures of student satisfaction. The fact that more students are applying to St. Edward's and continuing their studies to graduation reflects their satisfaction with our personalized, transformative educational experience. This national recognition is encouraging in our quest to be known as one of the best small universities in the country."
University Noticed for Commitment to Diversity
More recently, The New York Times has recognized St. Edward's University as one of the country's most ethnically and economically diverse private universities in its "Colleges of Many Colors" list. Featured in the Nov. 5, 2006, edition of the paper's Education Life section, the list includes 57 private schools, such as:
- Harvard
- M.I.T.
- Carnegie Mellon
- Stanford
- Duke
St. Edward's and Rice University are the only two private universities in Texas to make the list.
Since whites make up 67 percent of the American population, the paper first filtered out schools whose white students number more than 67 percent before identifying the greatest percentages of black, Asian and Hispanic undergraduate students. Other than white students, no college listed has another race majority.
St. Edward's is honored to be included in this list because it reflects the university's ongoing commitment to provide educational opportunities for students of varied cultural, religious, educational and economic backgrounds. |
