Making the lists

Happy students, happy rankings.

Best 371

In the 2010 edition of The Best 371 Colleges, the Princeton Review’s annual rankings tome, you’ll find Santa Clara University listed as a top school for undergraduate education. In addition, as in the 2009 survey, SCU scores 96 out of 100 for sustainability efforts. And the Best 371’s narrative section observes that SCU’s Jesuit ethos “develops better-rounded students who are more aware of the world around them” and that there is a “large emphasis on immersion trips and getting students to volunteer and to go out into the community.” There’s a bit of whimsy in the “Survey says …” column, where SCU students report: “Athletic facilities are great. Career services are great. School is well run. Students are happy.” (It also reports student fondness for beer and other beverages.)

Making The Lists Winter 2019

The “Inside Word” listing gives kudos to SCU’s enrollment efforts: “Each year, the Santa Clara admissions office works hard to assemble a diverse incoming class. The result is a student body with large Asian and Hispanic populations; this isn’t your typical lily-white private school.”

The report from U.S. News

The 2010 edition of the granddaddy of rankings, America’s Best Colleges, published by U.S. News & World Report, singles out SCU as among “Top Up-and-Coming Schools.” This category was the result of a survey of college presidents, provosts, and admissions deans asked to list 10 schools making “improvements in academics, faculty, students, campus life, diversity, and facilities.” In addition, U.S. News hints that this category is meant to help make up for some of the shortcomings of the methodology used in the general survey.

But SCU doesn’t fare badly in overall rankings, either. Santa Clara is again ranked No. 2 among 115 master’s universities in the West, and the University is singled out in a number of other ways:

A Reflection

On Monday, April 21, 2025, after news of Pope Francis’s death arrived at Santa Clara University, Dennis C. Smolarski, S.J. stood in the Mission Church and gave a homily for Mass. His words reflected on the miracle of Easter, hope, and the example Francis gave others to follow.

Back to Basics

Bridging classrooms and living rooms, the BBILY Project helps parents help kids with math.

The Accent Artist

Turn those hard American As into proper British “ahs” with the help of dialect coach Kristin Hill ’25

Moral Dilemmas on Wheels

Anthropologist Melissa Cefkin steers us through the ethical predicaments of self-driving cars.