Princeton Review 2021 Guide Gives TAC Top Ratings for Academics, Financial Aid & Quality of Life

Top Rankings for “Classroom Experience”
& “Most Religious Students”

Thomas Aquinas College provides one of the best undergraduate educations in the country, according to The Princeton Review. The education services company features the College in the 2021 edition of its annual guide, The Best 386 Colleges. Only about 13 percent of America’s 2,500 four-year colleges are profiled in the publication. Thomas Aquinas College is one of only three Catholic schools recommended by the Cardinal Newman Society to make The Princeton Review’s “Best Colleges” list. 

Among the ratings for Thomas Aquinas College are scores of 93 for academics, 93 for quality of life, and 97 for financial aid. Based on its student survey, The Princeton Review additionally reports that, at TAC, “classroom facilities are great,” “class discussions [are] encouraged,” “no one cheats,” and “dorms are like palaces.”

“Since 1992, our annual ‘Best Colleges’ guide has showcased the schools we recommend to college applicants and their parents as nation’s best for undergraduate academics,” says Robert Franek, editor-in-chief of The Princeton Review and author of The Best 386 Colleges. “We are delighted that Thomas Aquinas College is one of the outstanding institutions we profile in the new edition.”

In its profile, The Princeton Review quotes extensively from the College’s students. Among their comments:

• “Students have a wide spectrum of terms with which to describe their unique education: ‘difficult, mind blowing, extremely enjoyable, and intensely interesting.’”
• “Students say [tutors] are excellent at facilitating discussions, ‘always accessible outside of their class hours,’ and ‘strong role models and mentors.’”
• “Students feel that while a classical education ‘may not prepare one for a specific job, it prepares one to be a good man [or woman].’ You have to work very hard, but … you see [it] pay off instantly in class.”
• “TAC students take pride in the ‘culture of casual kindnesses,’ where everyone ‘is friendly and comfortable with each other’ and is ‘always willing to have a good conversation.’” 
• “Students describe their peers as ‘kind,’ ‘quirky,’ ‘genuine,’ and united by ‘a desire for [pursuing] knowledge for its own sake.’” 

The guide also features 62 ranking lists of “Top 20” colleges in various categories, based on The Princeton Review’s survey of 140,000 students nationwide. Topics range from students’ assessments of their professors to opinions about the quality of financial aid and campus food. Among the “Top 20” ranking lists on which Thomas Aquinas College appears are:

• No. 3. for Most Religious Students
• No. 3 for Stone-Cold Sober Schools
• No. 6 for Best Classroom Experience
• No. 6 for Happiest Students
• No. 6 for Lots of Race/Class Interaction
• No. 7 for Professors Get High Marks
• No. 8 for Great Financial Aid
• No. 9 for Most Accessible Professors
• No. 13 for Most Beautiful Campus

“We are grateful that the Princeton Review has, once again, highlighted both the quality of our academic program and the affordability of this education,” says Chris Weinkopf, Thomas Aquinas College’s director of communications. “Yet especially noteworthy are the high marks it has given for the accessibility of our faculty and the quality of our classroom conversations, which are at the heart of our academic program. These high rankings, coming from a secular college guide, speak to the universal value of Catholic liberal education.”