Santa Clara ranks well above average in all areas of NSSE

Recently, in the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), Santa Clara was ranked highly in key categories of an academic environment when compared to other 602 other colleges in the United States and Canada.

According to the website for the NSSE, a survey they use collects data from nearly 400,000 first year and senior students from several hundred four-year universities about five different categories of that measure student engagement.

NSSE then publishes the benchmark scores for all of the different universities and provides a variety of reports to the universities comparing student responses to the national averages.

The five categories that the NSSE quantifies are student-faculty interaction, enriching educational experiences, a supportive campus environment, active and collaborative learning, as well as the level of academic challenge.

Self reported scores from students placed Santa Clara significantly above the national averages for all of these categories. Seniors especially reported results that placed Santa Clara 17.1 percentage points ahead of the benchmark for enriching educational experiences.

According to NSSE literature on the benchmark, this category includes fostering discussion among students about serious issues, bringing together students from different environments and encouraging student participation in different programs and activities that compliment the classroom.

The NSSE publishes the results of the study annually. The institute was initially founded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, and is now partnered with USA Today to publish its results.

For more information on Santa Clara's NSSE ratings, you can visit: http://www.scu.edu/nsse/.