August 14, 2000
For Immediate Release
Contact: Peter Bailley

National Study: Knox College Ranks Among
Top 150 Schools in Quality of Student Body

A recent study conducted by TheCenter, an educational research institute, has ranked Knox College in Galesburg among the top 150 private colleges and universities in the nation in two measures of student quality. Knox is 112 in SAT scores for incoming students and 77 in the number of students who won National Merit Scholarship and National Achievement Scholarship awards. There are more than 1,100 four-year colleges and universities in the United States.

The study "The Top American Research Universities," released in late July, ranked the schools in several categories. Students' test scores and academic awards were used as indicators of the quality of a school's student body -- one of the "key characteristics of top research universities in America," according to the study's authors, who are affiliated with the University of Florida.

"These results are all the more significant because Knox is a liberal arts college, not a research university, and one of the smallest schools in the study," said Dr. Richard S. Millman, President of Knox College. "The rankings are not adjusted for a school's enrollment, which gives the larger schools an advantage. Still, when Knox is stacked up against the likes of Harvard and Princeton, these rankings show that Knox is a college of choice for the best students from throughout the United States."

The study examined the median Scholastic Achievement Test (SAT) scores of students who entered college in the fall of 1998, and the number of National Merit Scholars and National Achievement Scholars enrolled at each school in 1999. At Knox, the median SAT score of the 1998 entering class was 1245. Knox enrolled a total of 8 National Merit and National Achievement Scholars in 1999.

The study is posted on the Internet in the form of several spreadsheets at http://thecenter.ufl.edu/research_data.html. Knox is listed in the SAT and National Merit tables.

Founded in 1837, Knox is an independent, four-year, liberal arts college in Galesburg, Illinois, with 1,220 students from 47 states and 41 nations. Knox's "Old Main," a National Historic Landmark, is the only building remaining from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.

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