Montana Tech is one of the nation's best institutions for undergraduate education, according to The Princeton Review. The education services company features the school in the new 2015 edition of its annual college guide, "The Best 379 Colleges" (Random House / Princeton Review, $23.99, August 5, 2014).
Only about 15% of America’s 2,500 four-year colleges and only four colleges outside the U.S. are profiled in the book, which is The Princeton Review's flagship college guide. It includes detailed profiles of the colleges with rating scores for all schools in eight categories, plus ranking lists of top 20 schools in the book in 62 categories based on The Princeton Review's surveys of 130,000 students attending the colleges.
Says Rob Franek, Princeton Review's Senior VP / Publisher and author of "The Best 379 Colleges," "Montana Tech offers outstanding academics, which is the chief reason we selected it for the book. We base our choices primarily on data we obtain in our annual surveys of administrators at these schools and at hundreds of other colleges. We take into account input we get from our staff, our 27-member National College Counselor Advisory Board, our personal visits to schools, and the sizable amount of feedback we get from our surveys of students attending these schools. We also work to maintain a wide representation of colleges in the book by region, size, selectivity and character."
“We are pleased to be named one of the nation’s best institutions for undergraduate education,” noted Montana Tech Chancellor Donald M. Blackketter. “Montana Tech is a premier institution for STEM education and a great return on investment for any student.”
In its profile on Montana Tech, The Princeton Review praises the university saying, “You would be hard-pressed to find many other places as low-key and personal in the realm of academia" and quotes extensively from Montana Tech students surveyed for the book. Among their comments: "Even if Montana Tech weren’t one of the only tech institutes in the state, its excellent science programs and reputation for develop¬ing high quality engineers to send out into the workforce would keep its class¬rooms filled.”
The Princeton Review does not rank the colleges academically or from 1 to 379 in any category. Instead it reports in the book 62 ranking lists of top 20 colleges in various categories. The lists are entirely based on The Princeton Review's survey of 130,000 students (about 343 per campus on average) attending the colleges. The 80-question survey asks students to rate their schools on several topics and report on their campus experiences at them. Topics range from assessments of their professors as teachers to opinions about their school's library, career services, and student body's political leanings. The Princeton Review explains the basis for each ranking list at www.princetonreview.com/college/college-rankings.aspx
The Princeton Review further recommends those 379 schools (plus an additional 269 schools) its website feature, "2015 Best Colleges: Region by Region - Northeast / Midwest / Southeast / West" which profiles a total of 648 schools across the four regions. Montana Tech landed on the 2015 Best Western College list.
"The Best 379 Colleges" is the 23rd edition of The Princeton Review's annual "Best Colleges" book. It is one of 150 Princeton Review books published by Random House in a line that also includes test-prep guides for the ACT, SAT, SAT Subject Tests, and AP exams, plus "The Complete Book of Colleges," and "Paying for College Without Going Broke."
The Princeton Review (www.PrincetonReview.com) is an education services company known for its test-prep courses, tutoring, books, and other student resources. Headquartered in Natick, MA, the Company is not affiliated with Princeton University.