There’s a certain energy that permeates throughout campus — one that can be hard to describe, but familiar to all Spiders. Success and student engagement thrive here, which lead to accomplished lives and careers. So we love when others take notice — like The Wall Street Journal did just this week. 

In the latest rankings, we’re not only the No. 1 private college in Virginia, but we also made a jump from No. 61 to the No. 53 spot out of nearly 1,000 colleges nationwide.

So what does this ranking really mean? The scale was based on graduate success and student learning, factoring in academic resources, graduate outcomes, student engagement, and campus diversity. More importantly, it took student voices into account, including data from more than 200,000 current U.S. students across all ranked colleges.

Our excitement always rises when rankings are released. We hope you’ll join us in showing off that #SpiderPride!