According to the Princeton Review, Loyola has “Lots of Race/Class Interaction.”

The university was ranked first in the nation in this category in the 2012 Princeton Review, a college admissions consulting guide. Other guides recognized Loyola, including the Fiske Guide, which labeled the university as a “Best Buy.” U.S. News & World Report placed Loyola in one of their top 10 “Best Colleges” lists for the 21st consecutive year.

Every year, these guides rank colleges and universities nationwide and around the world in several categories. According to Keith Gramling, director of Enrollment Management, prospective students consult the rankings.

“Many prospective students look to these as an indicator of quality and value of the academic experience,” Gramling said.

This year the Princeton Review ranked Loyola number one in its “Lots of Race/Class Interaction” category.

Around 122,000 students who attend the four-year colleges listed in the Princeton Review voted electronically on the Princeton Review’s 63 rankings lists. Students used a 5-point scale from extremely positive to extremely negative. The question that put Loyola first in the “Lots of Race/Class Interaction” category was, “Do different types of students, black/white, rich/poor, interact frequently and easily at your school?”

Gramling said that Loyola has a commitment to diversity as a Jesuit institution.

“At the heart of a liberal arts and sciences education is the free exchange of ideas,” he said. “The Jesuits don’t want to teach what to think but how to think critically.”

The Princeton Review also placed Loyola in the “Best in the Southeast” ranking list, which is part of a regional designation within the Princeton Review’s “Best 376 Colleges.” According to David Soto, the Princeton Review´s director of College Rankings and Ratings, only 15 percent of all four-year schools are part of this guide.

The Fiske Guide gave Loyola the “Best Buy” title, which is given to only 49 institutions nationally.

For the 21st year, U.S. News & World Report ranked Loyola among its top 10 universities in the South. In its 2012 College Guide, Loyola ranked eighth. The report also ranked Loyola fifth in the “Best Value School” category for southern universities.

Santiago Caicedo can be reached at [email protected]