Princeton Review 2022 Guide Gives TAC Top Ratings for Academics, Financial Aid & Quality of Life

Thomas Aquinas College provides one of the best undergraduate educations in the country, according to The Princeton Review.

“We salute Thomas Aquinas College for its outstanding academics,” says Rob Franek, The Princeton Review’s editor-in-chief and lead author of its 2022 guide, The Best 387 Colleges. “We are genuinely pleased to recommend it to prospective applicants searching for their ‘best-fit’ college.”   

Only about 14 percent of America’s 2,700 four-year colleges are profiled in the annual 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. 

For this, the guide’s 30th anniversary edition, The Princeton Review curated “Great Lists” of colleges in 26 categories. The lists identify schools that have had a distinctive history of appearances on the ranking lists in past editions. Thomas Aquinas College is included on the Great Financial Aid list for its 50-year commitment to making its unique program of Catholic liberal education affordable for students and their families. Among the College’s other ratings are scores of 90 for academics, 93 for quality of life, 94 for financial aid, and 98 for tutors’ accessiblity.

Based on its student survey, The Princeton Review additionally reports that, at TAC:

• Students are happy
• Classroom facilities are great
• Class discussions [are] encouraged
• No one cheats
• Students are friendly
• Diverse student types interact on campus
• Students are very religious
• Dorms are like palaces

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 say the combination of curriculum and pedagogy allows them to ‘find the truth themselves,’ hone their critical thinking skills, and, by senior year, grasp essential ‘core ideas of the highest nature such as relativity, time, space and being.’”
• “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.’” 

“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.”