Santa Clara University

SANTA CLARA, Calif.-Aug. 20, 2009. In its annual ranking, "America's Best Colleges 2010," U.S. News & World Report highlighted Santa Clara University as one of a group of 80 colleges and universities known for a strong commitment to teaching undergraduates.

Santa Clara University was also featured in a section titled “Top Up-and-Coming- Schools” as part of a group of higher education institutions that have recently made striking improvements or innovations.

In addition, for the 20th consecutive year, Santa Clara was ranked second overall among 115 master’s universities in the West. SCU’s average undergraduate graduation rate—85 percent—was the second highest in the country among all national master’s level universities. SCU’s school of engineering was ranked #19 among U.S. engineering schools, where the highest degree awarded is a bachelors or masters.

The survey compared SCU with other similar comprehensive universities that offer a full range of undergraduate programs and master’s degrees, but few doctoral programs. The Western region includes master’s level colleges and universities from Colorado to the West Coast, including Texas. Other schools in the top 10 master’s universities in the West are Gonzaga University, Seattle University, and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

Additional highlights from the U.S. News rankings include:

• Santa Clara University had the highest average freshman retention rate—93 percent—of master’s universities in the West. (The freshman retention rate reflects the percentage of freshmen who return to re-enroll in their sophomore year.)
• A section titled “Programs to Look For” highlighted the University’s learning and residential communities, as well as Santa Clara’s service learning programs. In learning communities, students typically take two or more courses as a group; in service learning programs, for-credit volunteer work in the community is used as an instructional strategy.

The magazine’s rankings were based on academic reputation, graduation rates, class size, percent of full-time faculty, student/faculty ratios, retention of students, student test scores and grades, student selectivity, financial resource, and alumni giving.

The “Best Colleges” rankings can be found on the U.S. News Web site, www.usnews.com.

About Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University, a comprehensive Jesuit, Catholic university located 40 miles south of San Francisco in California’s Silicon Valley, offers its 8,758 students rigorous undergraduate curricula in arts and sciences, business, and engineering, plus masters and law degrees, and engineering Ph.D.s. Distinguished nationally by one of the highest graduation rates among all U.S. masters universities, California’s oldest operating higher-education institution demonstrates faith-inspired values of ethics and social justice. For more information, see www.scu.edu.