By howard koplowitz
Queens College was ranked 11th in the country for its diversity, according to the latest college guide put out by the Princeton Review.
“We’re always quite pleased about our rankings,” said Sue Henderson, vice president of institutional advancement and chief operating officer of Queens College. “The ones that we sort of always excel at generally are diversity and student satisfaction.”
Henderson said she believed the college was ranked 11th out of 20 in the category of Lots of Race/Class Interaction because of the institution’s diverse student body and the college’s more than 160 clubs — many of them tied to a country’s culture.
About half of Queens College students were born in another country, Henderson said, and the college has a number of international students.
“Our general education requirements have a global aspect to them,” she said. “Queens College continues to be an institution that offers high-quality education at a reasonable cost.”
The college also improved its rankings in several other categories, jumping 10 points in financial, 23 points in how environmentally aware and responsible students are at the school and 11 points in how competitive it is to be admitted to Queens College.
The Princeton Review recently put out in 2012 annual college guide along with its The Best 376 Colleges list and the 2012 Best in the Northeast rankings — all of which featured Queens College.
While the company puts out its Best Party Schools ranking, Queens College is proud that it is not on that list but is in the top 20 in categories such as “Got Milk?,” which lists campuses where beer is scarce and Stone Cold Sober Schools.
Queens College President James Muyskens took pride in the diversity rankings.
“What most people discover when they are exposed to belief systems different from their own is that there are more things that unite us than divide us,” he said in a statement. “On our richly diverse campus — with students from over 150 nations attending — we pride ourselves on fostering exactly these types of productive encounters here and within the community.”
Reach reporter Howard Koplowitz by e-mail at hkoplowitz@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4573.
