Wagner College was named one of America’s best colleges in the Princeton Review’s new “Best 386 Colleges” guide, which was released today.
Special kudos went to the Wagner College Theatre program, which was ranked Number 3 in the nation.
“It is gratifying to see Wagner receive recognition from a well-regarded, independent organization,” said President Joel W. Martin. “This honor is a tribute to the hard work of our faculty and students and the staff members who support them. I am proud to be a part of this mission-driven, student-focused community.”
“Since 1992, our goal in publishing college rankings — and our ongoing mission at the Princeton Review — is to help students find, get accepted to, and thrive at the colleges best for them,” said Robert Franek, Princeton Review’s editor-in-chief and lead author of the book.
“We chose the 386 colleges for this edition as our ‘best’ overall, academically, based on data we gathered in 2019–20 from more than a thousand school administrators about their schools' academic programs and offerings,” Franek said.
This link will take you to the Princeton Review “Best 386 Colleges” web page for Wagner College.
Theater program #3 in America
Wagner College Theatre was ranked #3 among collegiate theater programs in America in the Princeton Review’s “Best 386 Colleges” guide for 2021.
The ranking reflects the survey responses of Wagner College students to the question, “How do you rate your college’s theater productions?”
Wagner came ahead of Brown, Elon, Bard, Sarah Lawrence and Columbia, among others.
The WCT has been ranked among the top 5 collegiate theater programs in the United States by the Princeton Review since 2004. See this year’s complete list here.
“This prestigious ranking reflects Wagner students’ recognition of the hard work and dedication of their peers,” said Dr. Felicia Ruff, the chair of Wagner College's Performing Arts Department.
“But the most important aspect of WCT and its decades in the Top 5 is the recognition of young, idealistic, caring students who grow up in their performing arts classes as they challenge themselves, one another, their faculty and the department to be the best version of itself — not just on our stages and classrooms but in the world.
“What I see, year in and year out, and what this ranking reflects, is a recognition by the Wagner community of the passion, commitment, love and dreams of the students and alumni in this department,” Ruff said. “The power of WCT is the power of dreaming made manifest, on stage and in life.”
Wagner College has several strong programs in the performing arts, including majors in Arts Administration, Dance Education, Theatre Performance, a dual major in Theatre and Education, and minors in Theatre and Dance. Wagner alumni have been found onstage recently in Broadway shows like “Dear Evan Hansen,” “Fiddler” in Yiddish, “Aladdin,” “Come From Away,” “Pretty Woman” and “Moulin Rouge.” They have worked behind the scenes at major venues like Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Met and BAM, and have served in key roles in casting and producers’ offices, P.R. firms, touring productions, festivals, cruises and educational settings.
The Top 20 lists
The Princeton Review tallied the rankings for the Top 20 lists in the new Best Colleges guide based on its surveys of 143,000 students (about 370 per campus) attending the 386 colleges in the book in 2019-20 and/or the previous two school years.
The survey asks students 85 questions about their school’s academics, administration, student body, and themselves. The format uses a five-point Likert scale to convert qualitative student assessments into quantitative data for school-to-school comparisons. You’ll find more information on the ranking methodology on the Princeton Review website.
