College Raptor aims to help students find their best fit colleges, academically, culturally, and financially. While big colleges can be a great fit for some students, others do better on smaller campuses. To bring attention to small colleges around the country, we’ve developed this map highlighting the top hidden gem college in each state.
In our analysis, we looked at every 4-year college in the U.S. and found the highest-ranked colleges (based on the College Raptor overall ranking, which includes factors like selectivity, graduation rate, average debt upon graduation and other factors) in each state which received fewer than 5,000 applications per year but had an enrollment of more than 1,000 students.
Here’s the map:
And a tabulation of the data:
Note: Each state is represented, with the exception of Alaska, which had no colleges that fit our criteria. Certain highly-specialized institutions were excluded from the list.
This post was edited at 11 AM CST, 5/28/2015 to include links to each college’s College Raptor profile
Hard to think that VMI isn’t the best school in Virginia that receives less than 5,000 applications. It consistently ranks in non-US News & World Report Rankings as one of the best schools in Virginia, and consistently receives fewer than 2,000 applications.
I would’ve thought Furman would have appeared before Wofford in SC. Maybe they get more than 5k apps. I went to Rollins College in Florida my freshman year, which is a great school. Just very hard to focus!
Data must be old. Kenyon received more than 6500 applications for the class of 2018.
Hi David,
IPEDS data tends to lag by a year or more. Our most recent data is from the 2013 cycle, for which Kenyon received just over 4,000 applications.
Olivia
William Carey is in Mississippi, not Missouri! Perhaps you’d consider Millsaps instead.