WSJ & Forbes Rankings

[nrtlax33]

@prezbucky : So what are those colleges where students feel most engaged? Answer: In the WSJ/THE College Rankings, schools with a religious affiliation are leaders in being both inspirational and challenging according to WSJ’s own analysis.
Here are the top 10 by “Engagement”
1 Dordt College
2 Oklahoma Baptist University
3 Texas Christian University
3 Cedarville University
3 Harding University
6 Brown University
6 University of Southern California
6 Texas A&M University-College Station
6 Brigham Young University-Provo
6 Indiana Wesleyan University-Marion

One crucial aspect of a successful college experience is how students learn.
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The engagement score in the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings—measured mainly through roughly 189,000 survey responses over the past two years—monitors how challenged and inspired students feel inside and outside the classroom, as well as the breadth of courses their schools offer.
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Eight of the top 11 schools for engagement have a religious affiliation. Those institutions often include in their missions the education of the entire student—body, mind and soul—and put a premium on group projects, mentoring and self-reflection.
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**Brown University is one of the few schools that scored high in student engagement, tied at No. 6, as well as in the top ranks overall, tied for No. 7. Provost Richard Locke attributes the school’s high mark for engagement to the fact that students don’t have specific courses they’re required to take. “You only have students in your class who want to be there,” he says, which changes the tenor of classroom conversations.

Brown also encourages hands-on learning through its Engaged Scholars Program, with courses on the anthropology of homelessness bringing students to social-service agencies, for example, or urban-studies students learning about the tactics of community organizers.**
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MIT Vice Chancellor Ian Waitz says the low score “puzzles me,” noting that internal surveys of the senior class are generally positive.

An MIT design class made recommendations last spring on how to revamp the first-year experience, giving students more flexibility in what courses they take, the opportunity to explore other disciplines and intensive advising to navigate it all.

The goal, Dr. Waitz says, is for students to “have a bit more opportunity to be inspired and retain that love of learning and solving problems” that they have at arrival and regain later in their academic careers.
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Many elite colleges flunked when it came to challenging and engaging students. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, No. 2 overall, landed at No. 304 on engagement. And the California Institute of Technology, No. 5 overall, ranked below 500 on that measure. I don’t want to talk about UChicago. If you are forced to walk 0.7 mile to food, I am sure you are not very engaged.
Go Bruno!