Small But Mighty Colleges Featured in 2020’s Hidden Gems Rankings

IOWA CITY, IA – College Raptor announced its 2020 Hidden Gems Rankings, which spotlights great but lesser-known colleges as part of their overall mission of helping students and parents find “The Right College, The Best Price™.” Raptor has helped millions of families to discover college options that best fit a students’ academic, cultural, and financial profile.

Notable standouts for 2020 included Wheaton College, which has topped the Hidden Gems in the U.S. list in Illinois for the fifth consecutive year, and Samford University in Alabama, which is featured on four separate lists. Newcomers for 2020 included Muhlenburg College in Pennsylvania and Loyola University of New Orleans in Louisiana.

In addition to College Raptor’s overall Hidden Gems in the U.S. and best gems by region, the company curated new niche lists that highlight schools with popular degree programs and schools with the lowest student loan debt levels. New this year are rankings for “Hidden Gems for Teaching,” “Hidden Gems for Nursing,” “Hidden Gems with the Lowest Average Federal Student Loan Debt,” and “Hidden Gems in the City.”

It is impossible for families to be familiar with all of the 3,000 colleges that grant four-year degrees. That is why the Hidden Gems Rankings are so impactful in expanding a family’s scope of quality choices. Further, CollegeRaptor.com helps students calculate personalized match scores and costs at every school in the U.S. through advanced AI algorithms.

“We’ve created the best site for families to identify their best college options at a price they can afford. Sometimes this means helping families find colleges that they may not have known about but are great fits for the student,” says Bill Staib, College Raptor’s CEO. “Each student is unique and so is every school. We take pride in making it easy for students to make new connections to colleges through our Hidden Gems Rankings lists and college match tools.”

View the complete College Raptor 2020 Hidden Gems at www.collegeraptor.com/hidden-gems-2020/.

View 2020’s new lists:
Hidden Gems for Teaching
Hidden Gems for Nursing
Hidden Gems with the Lowest Average Federal Student Loan Debt
Hidden Gems in the City

College Raptor builds mobile-first products to help students, parents, counselors, and colleges resolve some of the most significant challenges in college planning. It is the only college search platform that enables students and families to discover quality, affordable college options based on personalized estimates of financial aid, scholarships, academic match, and acceptance chances at every four-year college in the country. As a result, students and their families find cost-effective, academically appropriate college options that prepare them for their career. For more information about College Raptor, visit www.CollegeRaptor.com.

Featured

  • Round Rock ISD Completes New Early College High School

    Round Rock ISD near Austin, Texas, recently announced that construction is complete on a new, 46,500-square-foot campus for Early College High School, according to a news release. The new facility will allow the school’s students and staff to move from portables into a permanent building and increase its enrollment to 500.

  • University of Arizona Approves New Residence Hall

    The Arizona Board of Regents recently approved plans for a new residence hall at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Ariz., according to a news release. The new facility is scheduled to open in fall 2028 and have the capacity for more than 1,200 students, enforcing a new university expectation that all first-year students live on campus.

  • Houston-Area High School Breaks Ground on 117,000SF Multi-Use Facility

    North Shore Senior High School, part of Galena Park ISD in Houston, Texas, recently broke ground on a new multi-use facility for student extracurriculars, according to a news release. The North Shore Multi-Use Facility will include dedicated practice and training space for the school’s athletics and fine arts programs.

  • How a Portable Sink Helped an Art Classroom Run More Smoothly

    Classroom design decisions can have outsized effects on instructional time and safety at schools juggling mismatched infrastructure, strict budgets, and crowded schedules — particularly in the arts. Between spilled paint and dirty brushes, art classes run smoother with a sink in the studio. But many schools don’t have a sink in every art classroom.