Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

West Virginia Wesleyan has been named among the best regional colleges in the South and second in the South in the Great Schools, Great Prices category in the 2012 edition of U.S. News and World Report’s Best Colleges.

In the report released on Tuesday, Wesleyan is ranked 12^th, which places the college in the top tier for regional colleges in the South.  Regional colleges are determined by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Schools in this category focus primarily on the undergraduate experience and offer a broad range of programs in the liberal arts and in fields such as business, nursing, and education as well as a small number of graduate programs.

The private residential college historically ranks well above the majority of its West Virginia college and university peers in the class profile of its entering class, retention and graduation rates, and alumni participation rates.  Since its inception, Wesleyan has also enrolled the most PROMISE Scholars of any private college in the state.

Wesleyan is the highest ranked school in West Virginia in the Great Schools, Great Prices category.  The calculation for this group of institutions takes into account a school’s academic quality, based on U.S. News Best Colleges ranking and the 2010-2011 net cost of attendance for a student who receives the average level of need-based financial aid. U.S. News considers the most significant values to be among colleges that are above average academically.

The average cost for students after receiving grants based on need in 2010-2011 was $16,791.  The typical out-of-pocket cost to attend the school after loans is below $6,000.

The inclusion in the U.S. News Best Colleges issue is the third time that West Virginia Wesleyan has received national or regional recognition in the past three months.  Earlier this summer, Wesleyan was named a Best Southeastern College by The Princeton Review for the 10^th consecutive year and was recognized as a member of the 2010 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll.  This is the second straight year Wesleyan has been included in that group.

Wesleyan, which  has an enrollment of 1,452 students, offers 44 undergraduate majors and 36 minors along with graduate programs in athletic training, business, education, English (creative writing), and nursing.   Nine Wesleyan students have been named Fulbright Scholars in the past five years, while seven others have been named as George Mitchell, Gilman, Clinton Global Initiative, U.S. Department of State Critical Language, and NCAA Post-Graduate scholars.