StudyBlue College Rankings Report 201 An Annual Report on the U.S. Colleges and Universities with the Smartest Studiers 1
Introduction Bird s Eye View The Smartest Studiers Ivy vs. State The Nerdiest Notetakers Degree vs. Degree Who Knew? 8 9 11 12 2
Introduction As the cost of higher education continues to rise at a ghastly rate and new online education providers threaten to make on-campus learning obsolete, the methods of evaluating a valuable college education are changing. Prospective students must look beyond the traditional metrics to decide where they can receive a quality education without breaking the bank. Being a successful college student isn t just about individual intelligence and lectures from world-renowned professors it s also about learning alongside your classmates. In fact, recent studies, such as this one by Uri Treisman at University of California, Berkeley, demonstrate that surrounding yourself with dedicated peers and collaborating with fellow students lead to better results than studying alone. The purpose of this study is to identify the colleges and universities across the U.S. that attract the most studious learners. Rather than just basing college rankings on typical statistics like graduation rates, test scores and average class sizes, we looked for unique metrics that can inform prospective students about the studying habits and success rates of students at their potential school. We narrowed our findings down to the following five categories: THE SMARTEST STUDIERS What schools have the highest percentage of students reaching mastery of their study material? IVY VS. STATE Does the Ivy League really attract the smartest studiers? THE NERDIEST NOTETAKERS At which schools do students take the best notes? DEGREE VS. DEGREE Which majors study the most or the least? This study was conducted by StudyBlue, the leading crowdsourced learning app used by 1 in college students in the U.S. to master any subject. More than 6 million people use StudyBlue to create, share and compare notes pulling from the largest and fastest-growing library of online study material in the world, containing more than 20 million user-generated digital notecards. The data used for the study was pulled from the cumulative usage of StudyBlue for the past three years through August 201 on college campuses with at least 1,000 users. Educational institutions considered were limited to those that appear on the U.S. News & World Report s National University Rankings. WHO KNEW What surprising results did we find along the way?
Bird s Eye View Being a successful college student isn t just about being smart it s about studying smart. StudyBlue, the leading crowdsourced learning app used by 1 in college students in the U.S., developed college rankings based on the campuses with the smartest, most thorough studiers as determined by cumulative usage of the app.
The Smartest Studiers We looked across the country to see what schools lead the pack with the most thorough studiers. Using personalized quizzes on StudyBlue, students can practice for their upcoming exams to ensure they know their stuff. These are the top 20 campuses with the highest percentage of students reaching 90% mastery on their quizzes or an A-range in a typical college course. 1 2 6 Indiana State University University of Wyoming Louisiana Tech University University of Idaho New Mexico State University Washington University in St. Louis 11 12 1 1 1 16 Oklahoma State University - Stillwater Wichita State University Hofstra University DePaul University University of South Dakota University of Chicago 7 Sam Houston State University 17 University of Rhode Island 8 University of Denver 18 Pepperdine University 9 University of West Florida 19 University of Colorado Denver 10 University of St. Thomas 20 Illinois State University
The Smartest Studiers The Sycamores at Indiana State University came out far ahead with 78% users reaching A-range mastery, a whopping 12% more than the number two school, University of Wyoming (6%). ISU 78% 6
The Smartest Studiers Biology 1 2 Psychology Most Popular Subjects Marketing Now that we know where the most studious students attend school, we wanted to know what they were studying. These are the five most popular subjects at the top 20 schools based on the number of StudyBlue users in classes for each subject. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the sciences (like biology, chemistry and psychology) and occupational subjects (like marketing and accounting) had the most students using tools like StudyBlue to master their material. Accounting Chemistry 7
Ivy vs. State Does the Ivy League truly attract the most dedicated students? Our data indicates that smart studiers often choose to attend state schools instead, where tuition is a much easier pill to swallow. State Schools 78% $8.k 6% $6.8k 6% $8.0k Indiana State University University of Wyoming Louisiana Tech University 61% $6.8k 9% $6.6k University of Idaho Ivy League Schools New Mexico State University Key Percentage of studiers mastering content. Scale: 0% -100% In-state tuition and fees. Scale: $0 - $0,000 2% $1.8k 1% $.9k 8% $8.1k *Tuition for 201-1 as cited by US News & World Report. In-state tuition shown for State Schools. Princeton University Harvard University Dartmouth University 2% $.8k 6% $7.7k Yale University University of Pennsylvania 8
The Nerdiest Notetakers Notetaking is one of the most important skills for any student aiming to get that coveted.0 GPA. On StudyBlue, students help each other learn by sharing digital notecards with peers around the world who are studying the same subject. As a testament to the we are smarter than me mentality of our learner community, more than 100 million digital notecards have been shared and used on StudyBlue by a learner other than the notecard s maker. That s a lot of shared knowledge! We wanted to find out what campuses have the best notetakers. These campuses came out on top for having the most popular digital notecards viewed by students at schools other than their own. 1 2 Washington State University - Pullman Campus Oklahoma State University - Stillwater University of Missouri - Columbia University of South Dakota University of Arkansas - Fayetteville 11 12 West Virginia University 1 University of Kentucky University of Nebraska - Lincoln 1 Auburn University 1 Kansas State University 6 Louisiana State University 16 Brigham Young University 7 Iowa State University 17 University of Maine Orono 8 University of Mississippi 18 San Diego State University 9 Utah State University 19 Oregon State University 10 Illinois State University 20 Baylor University 9
The Nerdiest Notetakers StudyBlue users at Washington State University (or Wazzu ) have created digital notecards for more than 600 classes. It s a trove of information from Abnormal Psychology to Veterinary Pathology, all available for learners to tap across the globe. WSU 10
A Degree vs. Degree Engineering students are always humble bragging about their all-nighters, but are they actually doing the most work? We looked into what majors and disciplines spend the most time studying on StudyBlue. Beware, students majoring in an Asian language, it looks like you re never going to put down your vocab cards. Theater majors, you can leave that smartphone in your dorm room and take your studying to the stage. MOST Notecards Studied per Student FEWEST Notecards Studied per Student 1 Slavic Languages & Literature 1 Statistics 2 Distance Education 2 Mathematics Environmental Horticulture Women s Studies Korean Department Emergency Medical Technician Veterinary Pathobiology Liberal Arts 6 Japanese 6 Physics 7 History of Art & Architecture 7 Neurology 8 9 Design, House & Merchandising Latin 10 Latin Classics 8 9 10 Film & Video Studies Health Education Integrative Studies in Social Sciences VS 11 12 1 Medical Administrative Assistant Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Science East Asian Languages & Literature 1 Philology 1 Construction Management Technology 16 Chinese 17 Asian Languages & Cultures 18 German 19 Occupational Therapy Assistant 20 Optometry 11 12 Business Finance 1 Social Sciences 1 Psychology & Social Behavior Information & Communications Technology 1 Counseling Psychology 16 African Studies 17 Organic Chemistry 18 United States History 19 Microeconomics 20 Theater & Drama Average Number of Studies per Person for Slavic Languages = 0 Average Number of Studies per Person for Theater & Drama = 11
Who Knew? Okay, and now for the strange, zany, random facts and everything in between! We unearthed a lot of fun information along our journey to find the smartest studiers. Who said Ivies know best? Students at Brown, Columbia, Stanford and Cornell are in the top 10% of schools with the least thorough studiers according to our rankings. Organic chemistry is one of the LEAST studied disciplines. So what are those pre-med students complaining about? The overachievers are hiding out at the University of Idaho! This is where the highest percentage of students more than 0% reached not just 90% but 100% mastery of their material while taking practice quizzes. On which campuses will you find the most students with their noses in their phones? These schools have the highest percentage of students using mobile apps to study: Rice University, University of Louisiana at Lafayette and Louisiana Tech University. For some reason, women are just. on. top. of. it. Women spend.% more time studying than men. 12
About the creators of the study. StudyBlue is a crowdsourced learning app used by more than 6 million people to master any subject. Students and lifelong learners alike can create, share and compare notes pulling from the largest and fastest-growing library of online study material, containing more than 20 million usergenerated digital notecards covering every topic from Portuguese to Psychology to Pilates. StudyBlue allows people to study anytime, anywhere across all of your Web, ios and Android devices. For more information, visit http://www.studyblue.com. Number of Users 6,000,000 Percentage of Users Who Use the Mobile App 0% Number of Digital Notecards 267,000,000 Number of Shared Notecards 108,700,000 Number of Countries with StudyBlue users: 200+ 1