By Erika Neldner
Reinhardt University is ranked as the 16th Best Regional Colleges-South, according to College Consensus.
“This strong ranking is acknowledgement of Reinhardt University’s excellent academic programs, beautiful University in a Park, passionate faculty and successful student body,” said Provost Dr. Mark Roberts. “We are proud of our students, faculty and staff, and it is because of their hard work and dedication to learning that we are able to earn such a great rating.”
Reinhardt University ranked higher than any other Georgia school in College Consensus’ Best Regional Colleges South list.
College Consensus is a new college ratings website that aggregates publisher rankings and student reviews. The Publisher Consensus comes from highly regarded publications including U.S. News and World Report, Forbes and the Wall Street Journal. The Student Consensus is gathered from student ratings of universities across the internet. The College Consensus rating is the average of the two.
To identify the Best Regional Colleges-South 2018, College Consensus combined the latest results from the most respected college rankings with thousands of real student reviews to produce a unique consensus score for each school. According to College Consensus founder Jeremy Alder, “Like Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic does for movies, College Consensus gathers the publisher rankings and student reviews from around the web and distills the results into simple, easy to understand scores so students can quickly and easily compare schools. It is the ranking of all rankings, so to speak.”
“The Best Regional Colleges-South ranking puts the spotlight on the smaller regional colleges that provide the grassroots foundations of higher education,” said managing editor Carrie Sealey-Morris. “Regional colleges do the grunt work of educating a middle-class workforce, and in the South, that often means helping rehabilitate rural and industrial areas.”
For the College Consensus ranking, regional colleges are defined as those that “offer associate’s and bachelor’s degrees, usually in career and professional fields, and usually at affordable rates.”
“Every ranking has its focus, and every student review has its bias,” said Sealey-Morris, “but in the Consensus, every voice gets its due.”
The College Consensus methodology “takes a higher perspective on the college ranking landscape, and in the Consensus, the playing field is leveled.” As an aggregate ranking, “the much-loved but less prominent regional colleges have as much opportunity to shine as the most famous research university.”
College Consensus’ Best Regional Colleges ranking “means the schools that make a difference in students’ lives get the recognition they deserve.” By taking the long view, College Consensus can become an invaluable part of a prospective college student’s research process. As Sealey-Morris asserts, “Prospective Southern college students need look no further for the full picture of the south’s college opportunities.”