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25 Colleges With the Best Professors

This post is part of a series on schools with the best and worst college professors. Read the other post on the 25 College With the Worst Professors.

Which colleges have the best professors?

Chances are that you've never heard of many of the 25 colleges with the best professors.

Oklahoma Wesleyan University, an evangelical Christian school in Bartlesville, OK, for example, is the nation's No. 1 school for top professors, according to an education think tank's analysis of teacher evaluations at RateMyProfessors.com.

The United States Military Academy has earned the No. 2 spot in the rate-my-professor competition. The Air Force Academy, another service academy, captured the No. 13th spot for top teachers.

25 Colleges With Best Professors

1. Oklahoma Wesleyan University
2. United States Military Academy (NY)
3. Clarke College (IA)
4. Wellesley College (MA)
5. North Greenville University (SC)
6. Master's College and Seminary (CA)
7. Wabash College (IN)
8. Carleton College (MN)
9. Sewanee-The University of the South (TN)
10. Marlboro College (VT)
11. Corban College (OR)
12. Randolph College (VA)
13. United States Air Force Academy (CO)
14. Wesleyan College (GA)
15. Pacific University (OR)
16. Whitworth University (WA)
17. Doane College (NE)
18. College of the Ozarks (MO)
19. Bryn Mawr College (PA)
20. Sara Lawrence College (NY)
21. Emory & Henry College (VA)
22. Wisconsin Lutheran College
23. Hollins University (VA)
24. Trinity International University (IL)
25. Cornell College (IA)

Characteristics of Colleges With Great Professors

What do the colleges on this list share in common? All of them are small private institutions. Most of the schools are liberal arts colleges with student bodies well under 4,000 students. And that's not surprising since liberal arts colleges tend to offer smaller classes and the prime focus of professors at these schools is teaching not research.

The Center for College Affordability and Productivity, an education think tank, crunched the figures from RateMyProfessors, which maintains the Internet's largest collection of college professor ratings. The site contains more than 11 million ratings on over one million professors. The center examined the teacher evaluations as part of its process of producing the annual college rankings for Forbes magazine.

Your school isn't on this list? Maybe next year.

Lynn O'Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution and she also writes for TheCollegeSolutionBlog.
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Oklahoma Wesleyan image by Lost Tulsa. CC 2.0.
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