Elon University is named one of the 25 “hottest colleges” in the nation in the 2006 edition of the Newsweek/Kaplan college guide. Elon is named the hottest school in the nation for student engagement.
The annual guide compiled by Newsweek magazine and Kaplan, a test preparation company, chooses a “hot list” of schools that the guide says are “creating buzz among students, school officials and longtime observers of the admissions process.”
Elon’s applications for admission have risen 70 percent in the past five years, increasing from 5,328 in 2001 to more than 9,000 for this fall’s freshman class.
Newsweek/Kaplan praises Elon’s active, engaged style of teaching and learning, noting the high percentage of students who work collaboratively on assignments as well as the number of students who study abroad. Elon senior Rachel Copeland is cited as an example of an engaged learner; she has built houses in the Dominican Republic through Habitat for Humanity and worked on an AIDS documentary in Namibia as part of Elon’s Project Pericles initiative.
Jay Mathews, higher education writer for The Washington Post, did the research and wrote the articles for the publication. He says the 25 schools that were chosen are “preparing students well for a complex world.”
The Newsweek/Kaplan top-25 listing is the latest in a series of recognitions awarded to Elon. U.S.News & World Report ranks Elon #5 among Southern Universities in its 2006 “America’s Best Colleges” guide, which was released Aug. 19. Princeton Review’s 2006 edition lists Elon among the nation’s best 361 colleges and the Fiske Guide to Colleges ranks Elon among 28 of the nation’s “best buy” private colleges and universities. The Fiske guide also says that Elon is a “rapidly rising star among liberal arts colleges in the Southeast and an emerging name nationwide.”
Other “hot colleges” on the Newsweek/Kaplan list include the following:
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, Calif.
Macalester College, St. Paul, Minn.
College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Va.
Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind.
The Citadel, Charleston, S.C.
Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Ga.
Xavier University of Louisiana, New Orleans
Wheaton College, Wheaton, Ill.
Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vt.
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Paul Smith’s College, Paul Smiths, N.Y.
University of Vermont, Burlington, Vt.
Brown University, Providence, R.I.
Ursinus College, Collegeville, Pa.
Scripps College, Claremont, Calif.
Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Ind.
Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn.
Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pa.
Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pa.
Clark University, Worcester, Mass.
Guilford College, Greensboro, N.C.
University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Ind.
Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles