SANTA PAULA, Calif., Dec. 12, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- For the past 15 years, Thomas Aquinas College has ranked among the top colleges and universities in the nation. National rankings for the small Catholic, Great Books college began in 1988 with listings in two Barron's guides, including Barron's Guide to the Most Prestigious Colleges, where it was listed among the top five Catholic colleges and universities in the nation and among the top seven colleges and universities in California.
This year is no exception, with the college receiving top rankings in America's Best Colleges, published by U.S. News & World Report, The Princeton Review, Insight magazine and Choosing the Right College, a college guide published by Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI).
The ISI guide reports: "With its Great Books program, the Thomas Aquinas curriculum is virtually unparalleled for providing its students with a rigorous liberal arts education. In an age in which the term 'traditional liberal arts' gets used for curricula where two or more core classes are defined, this college is one of the few that actually has the right to use it. The guiding principles of Thomas Aquinas are enumerated in its founding document, a monograph titled, 'A Proposal for the Fulfillment of Catholic Liberal Education.'...the document outlines a powerful vision of Catholic liberal education that has scarcely been changed in the last (32) years."
In U.S. News & World Report guide, the college is ranked among the top 100 best liberal arts colleges in the country based on a variety of criteria such as peer assessment, alumni giving, SAT scores, class size and retention rates. The SAT scores of incoming freshmen, which average 1285, place the college among the top four Catholic colleges in the country: Boston College, Georgetown University, University of Notre Dame and Thomas Aquinas College. The college is ranked second nationwide for its class size, which averages 15 to 18 students per class.
The Princeton Review names Thomas Aquinas College one of the "Best in the West" in its regional edition, The Best Western Colleges. It reads: "Students are extraordinarily enthusiastic about the program, claiming that Thomas Aquinas is 'the finest institution in America' and 'the best college to attend if you place a value on forming your mind and actually learning something'.....In addition, students are in awe of the amount of personal attention they receive from their tutors," a direct result of the college's 10:1 faculty to student ratio.
Insight magazine, a monthly publication of the Washington Times newspaper, again ranks Thomas Aquinas College among its Top 15 colleges in the country, basing its assessment on "the commitment to undergraduate teaching and use of a traditional curriculum."
Thomas Aquinas College, now in its 33rd year of operation, has been repeatedly ranked among the top colleges in Barron's and Peterson's guides, as well as in Donald Asher's Cool Colleges and The National Review College Guide.
"We are pleased that the college continues to receive high rankings in a number of top college guides that use a wide variety of criteria. This indicates the strength and depth of our unique program," says college President Thomas Dillon.
About Thomas Aquinas College: Thomas Aquinas College offers a four-year program of Catholic liberal education exclusively devoted to the study of the Great Books, using only the Socratic method of dialogue in all of its classes. There are no textbooks, no lectures and no electives. Instead, the College offers an entirely integrated curriculum using only the original texts of the greatest thinkers who have helped shape Western Civilization. These authors include St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, Aristotle, Plato, Shakespeare, Euclid, Dante, Galileo, Descartes, our American Founding Fathers, Adam Smith, Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton, to name a few.
Thomas Aquinas College graduates consistently excel in the many world-class institutions where they pursue graduate degrees such as law, medicine, business, theology and education. They distinguish themselves in these professions, serving as headmasters, business owners, lawyers, priests, doctors, military service men and women, educators and college presidents.