DelVal's Moving On Up

Delaware Valley College climbed six places in the 2012 U.S News & World Report rankings for Best Regional Colleges in the North, putting it among the top 20 colleges in its category.

This is the ninth consecutive year that DelVal has made the list. Several weeks ago, the college was chosen as one of the best in the North by the Princeton Review.

As part of its determination, U.S. News gathered data from each school in 16 areas related to academic excellence.

 “We are honored by the recognition and delighted that something this concrete exists to show parents and students our progress” Dr. Joseph S. Brosnan, president of the college, said in a statement Tuesday. “Our focus and attention on academics has been clearly and consistently reflected in this year’s rankings.”

Dr. Brosnan said the jump of six places is an indication that DelVal has developed a degree of momentum that is likely to continue for years.

“It is great to be known in the North, but the test before us now is to become known beyond the region,” Brosnan said.

Asked about the significance of DelVal’s climb, Robert J. Morse, director of Data Research at U.S. News, said, “It definitely means there has been real improvement.”

As part of its strategic plan, the Doylestown college is expanding its academic offerings and seeking university status. It is building a $15-million state-of-the art Life Sciences Center and will be restructuring into three separate schools, with a fourth division handling graduate programs and an entrepreneurial unit.

Among the criteria that went into DelVal’s ranking were its student-faculty ratio of 15-1 and the fact that 70 percent of its faculty teach full time. The rank also reflects recent progress in its average freshman retention rate.

Details on the rankings can be found online at www.usnews.com/colleges. The 350-page 2012 edition of the Best Colleges guidebook will be on newsstands Sept. 20.

On its website, U.S. News says its rankings are helpful to college applicants because they are “based on accepted measures of academic quality chosen after careful reporting and research on measuring quality in education.”

was founded in 1896 and encompasses 571 acres fronting Route 202. It is a multi-disciplinary, four-year institution with more than 1,700 full-time undergraduates enrolled in 27 programs of study.