Oglethorpe University is ranked among the nation’s Best Liberal Arts Colleges, according to the 2021 U.S. News & World Report’s Best Colleges Rankings, which offer data to help students find the best college for them.

In this year’s rankings, Oglethorpe also stood out for having the 18th most diverse student body among liberal arts colleges nationwide. U.S. News measures racial and ethnic diversity to “identify where students are most likely to encounter undergraduates from racial or ethnic groups different from their own.” Universities are evaluated and assigned a diversity index based on “the total proportion of minority students,” but excluding international students.

Oglethorpe was also recognized in the category of economic diversity, coming in among the country’s top performing liberal arts schools. To measure “an institution’s efforts to achieve economic diversity,” U.S. News looks at the percentage of the student body receiving federal Pell Grants for low-income students. Oglethorpe is listed as the 42nd most economically diverse liberal arts college, with a campus where 42% of students are Pell-eligible.

Universities nationwide are rated annually by U.S. News in an effort to help prospective students and their families evaluate higher education choices. Schools are ranked according to their performance across a set of widely accepted indicators of excellence and key weighted measures of quality: graduation and retention rates; assessment of excellence; faculty resources; student selectivity; financial resources; graduation rate performance; and alumni giving.

The country’s liberal arts colleges emphasize undergraduate education and award at least half of their degrees in the arts and sciences, which include such disciplines as English, the biological and physical sciences, history, foreign languages, and the visual and performing arts but exclude professional disciplines such as business, education, and nursing.