Webb Institute 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,” “Webb Institute 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.” 

President R. Keith Michel comments, “We are pleased that the Princeton Review has again acknowledged Webb’s commitment to excellence in education, by selecting Webb as one of its 379 Best Colleges.”

In its profile on Webb Institute, The Princeton Review quotes extensively from Webb Institute students the Company surveyed for the book.  Student comments about academics include: “Webb Institute does an excellent job of preparing students with the technical skills, knowledge, and work ethic to succeed in the marine field.”, “Webb excels at fostering values of hard work, perseverance, leadership, honesty and respect”.

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. 

Webb Institute is on the following ranking lists in “The Best 379 Colleges”:

#3 Easiest Campus to Get Around

#4 Most Accessible Professors

 In a “Survey Says” sidebar in the book’s profile on Webb Institute The Princeton Review lists topics that Webb Institute students surveyed for the book were in most agreement about in their answers to survey questions. The list ­­­­­­­­­includes: “classroom facilities are great,” “great financial aid,” and “internships are widely available.”

The schools in “The Best 379 Colleges” also have rating scores in eight categories that The Princeton Review tallies based on institutional data it collected during the 2013-14 academic year and/or its student survey for the book.  The ratings are scores on a scale of 60 to 99 and they appear in each school profile.  Rating categories include: Academics, Admissions Selectivity, Financial Aid, Fire Safety, and Green, a measure of school’s commitment to the environment in its policies, practices and education programs.  Among the ratings in the Webb Institute profile are scores of 98 for Academics and 95 for Quality of Life.