University Times

The Princeton Review has included Pitt in the 2014 edition of its annual college guide, “The Best 378 Colleges.”

Only about 15 percent of America’s 2,500 four-year colleges and four colleges outside the United States are profiled.

The guide does not rank the colleges overall. Instead, it provides an eight-category rating that measures how each school performs on a scale of 60-99 in areas such as quality of life and “green” initiatives. Theses ratings are based primarily on requested data provided by the schools.

Pitt received a quality of life rating of 94. These ratings are based on results from both student surveys and institutional data.

The Princeton Review guide also provides 62 ranking lists of the “top 20” colleges in various categories. These ranking lists are entirely based on The Princeton Review’s survey of 126,000 students (333 per campus on average) attending the colleges.

In the student-based category listings, Pitt ranked No. 7 in Best Health Services and No. 20 in Best Career Services.

The Princeton Review explains the basis for each ranking list at www.princetonreview.com/college/college-rankings.aspx.

School profiles and ranking and rating lists are posted at PrincetonReview.com.

“The University of Pittsburgh offers outstanding academics, which is the primary criteria for our choice of schools for the book,” said Robert Franek, The Princeton Review’s senior vice president, publisher and author of “The Best 378 Colleges.”

“We base our selections primarily on data we obtain in our annual institutional data surveys,” Franek added. “We also take into account input we get from our staff, our 35-member National College Counselor Advisory Board, our personal visits to schools and the wide range of feedback we get from our surveys of students attending these schools.”

The Princeton Review is not affiliated with Princeton University.