Catawba College is one of the nation's 320 best comprehensive colleges according to the 2007 edition of "America's Best Colleges," published by U.S.News & World Report. These comprehensive colleges are ranked according to geographic region (North, South, East, West) with Catawba ranked 23rd in the South. Catawba inched up in the rankings from 25th in 2006 to 23rd this year.
Comprehensive colleges which offer bacherlor's degrees focus on undergraduate education and a range of degree programs in the liberal arts as well as professional fields such as business, nursing and education.
Institutions of higher education which are included in the publication receive an overall performance score and a series of subscores. They are ranked by their peer institutions, and ranked according to average freshman retention rate, average graduation rate, the percentage of classes under 20, the percentage of classes of 50 or more, the student to faculty ratio, the percentage of faculty who are full time, their students' SAT/ACT scores in the 25th to 75th percentile, the number of freshmen in the top 25% of their high school class, acceptance rates, and according to the average alumni giving rate.
