Independent college rankings and review website College Choice published a ranking of the 50 U.S. colleges and universities with the happiest first-year students. Based primarily on the percentage of freshmen who return for their sophomore year, here are your top three rated universities:
1. Yale University
2. University of Chicago
3. Soka University of America in Aliso Viejo, California
“Students who complete their first year and return for their second at the same institution are much more likely to eventually finish their degree than those who transfer or dropout,” said College Choice Associate Editor Katie Brownell Amondson. “The schools on this list all do an exceptional job ensuring first freshmen students feel happy and supported enough to return for their sophomore year,” she said.
The ranking considered all regionally accredited colleges and universities recognized by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Retention rates were drawn from the most recent data available from the NCES IPEDS database and CollegeData.com. Schools sharing the same retention rate were ranked based on their overall graduation rates.
> The full ranking can be viewed at http://www.collegechoice.net/posts/colleges-with-happiest-freshman.
