Office of University Communications 

Missouri State receives 'Best in the Midwest' designation

SPRINGFIELD -- Missouri State University was selected for inclusion in The Princeton Review's 2009 online list of "Best Colleges: Region by Region." Missouri State is one of 159 schools on the site receiving the Best in the Midwest designation and has been included on this list since its inception six years ago.

Selection is based on a qualitative evaluation of academic excellence and responses from student surveys. Missouri State also is included in the Princeton Review "Colleges with a Conscience" list.

"Each year, Missouri State selects specific goals to strengthen the quality of our academic experience," said Missouri State President Michael T. Nietzel. "We're very pleased that groups such as The Princeton Review recognize the strengths of our university."

Information about each college included in the Best in the Midwest list is available at http://www.princetonreview.com/best-regional-colleges.aspx. The profile includes comments from students and general information about the school.

"We commend all of the schools we name this year as our 'regional best' colleges primarily for their excellent academic programs," said Robert Franek, Princeton Review's vice president of publishing. "We selected them based on institutional data we collected from several hundred schools in each region, our visits to schools over the years, and the opinions of independent and high school-based college advisors whose recommendations we invite. We also take into account what each school's customers - their students - report to us about their campus experiences at their schools on our 80-question student survey. Finally, we work to have our annual roster of 'regional best' colleges present a range of institutions in each region that varies by size, selectivity, character and locale."

The 159 colleges The Princeton Review chose for this year's "Best in the Midwest" designations are located in 12 states: Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin. The Princeton Review also designated 212 colleges in the Northeast, 120 in the West, and 139 in the Southeast as best in their locales on the company's 2009 Best Colleges: Region by Region section on its site. According to The Princeton Review, the 630 colleges named "regional bests" represent about 25 percent (one out of four) of the nation's 2,500 four-year colleges.

Missouri State University, the second largest in the state, is a public, comprehensive university system with a mission in public affairs, whose purpose is to develop educated persons while achieving five goals: democratizing society, incubating new ideas, imagining Missouri's future, making Missouri's future, and modeling ethical and effective behavior.

The Missouri State System consists of Missouri State University-Springfield, a selective admissions, graduate level teaching and research institution; Missouri State University-West Plains, an open admissions campus serving seven counties in south central Missouri; and Missouri State University-Mountain Grove.