When it comes to students having an impact, being politically active, LGBTQ-friendly, or mindful about the environment and community service, Pitzer College is among the top schools featured in the new edition of Princeton Review’s “The Best 389 Colleges 2024.”
The Review’s annual ranking features categories ranging from campus life (best food, friendliest students, best dorms) to areas reflecting larger societal concerns and issues (which schools are the greenest or most politically active, which are best at teaching students how to have an impact).
Pitzer placed in the top 10 and top 20 in 14 categories featured in this year’s rankings.
For the second year in a row, Pitzer ranks again at No. 1 in “Top 20 Best Schools for Making an Impact (Private Schools).” That category looks at community service opportunities, student government, sustainability efforts, and other forms of on-campus student engagement.
Pitzer placed well ahead of peer institutions including Wesleyan University, Swarthmore College, and Brown University. It is also the only member of The Claremont Colleges to make the cut on this list.
Other categories in which Pitzer ranked in the top ten include: “Green Matters: Everyone Cares about Conservation” (No. 3), “Best Campus Food” (No. 4), “LGBTQ-Friendly” (No. 4), “Most Politically Active Students” (No. 4), “Best College Dorms” (No. 7), “Most Engaged in Community Service” (No. 7), among many others.
This year’s list also reflects a dramatic improvement for the College in three categories: Pitzer jumped 11 spots from last year’s No. 18 ranking in “Most Engaged in Community Service” and also climbed four spots in both the “LGBTQ-Friendly” (from No. 8 to No. 4) and “Best Quality of Life” (from No. 22 to No. 18) categories.
Just 15 percent of America’s four-year colleges and universities are included in the Review’s rankings, which are based on student feedback about their experiences rather than on other institutional metrics. To compile the lists, Princeton Review tallied results from roughly 165,000 student surveys at the schools featured in the new edition and received about 424 surveys from each school.
