July 30, 2008
Lyon College News Bureau

The Princeton Review has again named Lyon College a “Best Southeastern College,” based on results from its “2009 Best Colleges,” a distinction Lyon has earned for the past five consecutive years.

Lyon College is one of nearly 139 schools receiving the Best in the Southeast designation, and one of only four Arkansas institutions on the list.

The others are Harding University, Hendrix College and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

This year, student opinion data from a total of 630 schools is featured on the “Best Colleges: Region by Region” section of PrincetonReview.com

"We commend all of the schools we name this year as our 'regional best' colleges primarily for their excellent academic programs,” said Robert Franek, Princeton Review's publisher and editorial director. “We selected them based on institutional data we collected from several hundred schools in each region, our visits to schools over the years, and the opinions of independent and high school-based college advisors whose recommendations we invite. We also take into account what each school’s customers – their students – report to us about their campus experiences at their schools on our 80-question student survey. Finally, we work to have our annual roster of 'regional best' colleges present a range of institutions in each region that varies by size, selectivity, character and locale."

The 139 colleges The Princeton Review chose for its "Best in the Southeast" designations are located in twelve states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. The Princeton Review also designated 212 colleges in the Northeast, 120 in the West, and 159 in the Midwest as best in their locales on the company’s 2009 Best Colleges: Region by Region section on its site. The 630 colleges named "regional bests" represent only about 25 percent of the nation's 2,500 four-year colleges.

The quality and value of a Lyon College education also earned the school a spot in the Princeton Review's 2008 edition of “America’s Best Value Colleges,” a guide profiling 165 colleges chosen for their excellent academics, generous financial aid packages and/or relatively low costs of attendance

The honor recognizes Lyon as one of the nation’s best value undergraduate institutions.

A New York City-based company, the Princeton Review is a known for its test prep courses, education services and books. It has conducted the “Best Colleges” survey since 1992, when it first published its annual guide, the only one offering college rankings based on student ratings of their schools and reports of their experiences at them.