Most Accessible Professors: Princeton Review List

Having professors that you can easily meet with can make the difference between a successful class and an utter failure.

The Princeton Review recently named the 11 colleges with the most accessible professors. Military academies dominated the list with West Point and the Coast Guard Academy taking first and second prize respectively.

Check out our slide show of the colleges with the most accessible professors. Then tell us, were your professors accessible? Weigh in below!

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Comments

[Katherine Wild]

02:54 PM on 02/03/2012

I went to college at Nebraska Wesleyan University. There was an average of twenty people in each class, the college had a small but beautiful campus, old buildings, and it was an arboritorium [I think that's what you call it. There were trees and plants everywhere, and people doing research.] I could walk to all my classes, all of the professors were extremely accessible and helpful, it was better than high school in that way. Also, since we were such a small college, everybody got behind everything - sports, issues, fundraisers, events. It was awesome.

[pamelaapage]

06:36 PM on 02/02/2012

I graduated from Sarah Lawrence in 1977. I studied on the campus in Bronxville as well as in the south of France where I was in the fine arts program. In both places, my professors were always accessible. They were not only teachers - they were mentors and friends. They made indelible impressions. Will Leach, Dale Harris, Bernard Pfriem - I hear their voices in my head and use what they taught me to this very day.

[Emily Blue]

11:22 PM on 01/23/2012

It's really comforting to see a few of my top picks on this list. Also, really quickly, imagine going to pomona and having access to the late David Foster Wallace.. amazing opportunities...

[sfbbmom]

04:38 PM on 01/19/2012

My son attends the new UC in Merced and he and his friends all rave about the accessibility of the profs. Many undergrads work with them on research projects which rarely occurs at the other UCs.

[marcchagal]

10:53 AM on 01/19/2012

These lists by Princeton have no credibility, whatsoever. They have already left UC Berkeley off the list completely in other lists that should have shown the university to be in the top 5 in several of their rankings as well as leaving off San Francisco-Oakland as the the #1 college town shown on other more credible lists.

[Nalini Mani]

04:13 PM on 01/18/2012

As a Sweet Briar College alum - I would say my professors each and every one of them were over and above accessible... great teachers fantastic education and all because I was able to converse with exchange idea with and learn from my professors outisde of regular classroom time.

[PerryLogan]

03:58 PM on 01/18/2012

I'm guessing these are not the schools where you can carry a gun around.

[Emily Blue]

11:20 PM on 01/23/2012

I worry about the schools where you think college students carry guns. Also, no, they're not... they're top academies and colleges.

[TFDNYC]

03:36 PM on 01/18/2012

NYU is notably missing. I had/have terrific access to my profs. Even the celeb professors are easy to reach.

[kwaut lizard]

04:08 PM on 01/18/2012

Had dinner with one Nobel Laureate and one Pulitzer Prize winner both seated at NYU just last October. I was so impressed that they both live to further their students.

[roshni]

03:18 PM on 01/18/2012

Way to plug the military!

[kwaut lizard]

03:57 PM on 01/18/2012

Exactly what I was thinking. Access, sure, but why would you want it?

[CAPTK]

03:04 PM on 01/19/2012

IDK, ask one of the Rhodes Scholars they regularly produce

[bluechao]

03:05 PM on 01/18/2012

Dunno about the other schools, but at Sarah Lawrence the whole curriculum is based around the premise of accessibility to one's professors. 2/5 credits for every course (yes, three, five credit courses per semester) is done as independent study with one's professor, so you meet with them one-on-one on a regular basis and they are also supposed to make time for students who wish meet even more often.

[idisVA]

02:35 PM on 01/18/2012

A highly dubious methodology of measuring accessibility of absent-minded professors.

[ScaredAcademic]

02:12 PM on 01/18/2012

How could one possibly measure this in any reasonable way?

[kwaut lizard]

04:02 PM on 01/18/2012

In America? Very easily, by actually seeking access to your professor.
As a measure in basic statistics it is called frequency of occurrence.
Apparently it is one of the important components missing in contemporary education. Apparently!

[ScaredAcademic]

04:41 PM on 01/18/2012

Good to know that ignorance is no barrier to arrogance.

As a published author in peer-reviewed statistics journals, let me suggest to you that student perceptions of accessibility are quite likely to systematically differ based upon aggregate characteristics of schools, that accessibility probably depends on subject matter offerings, and, perhaps most importantly, that the appearance of all the service academies would lead those with logical capabilities to at least contemplate ways that the measures may be useless. Of course, those endowed with legendary levels of arrogance, only superseded by ignorance, would be free from any such questions. Shows just how poorly American higher education does at critical thinking, at least to me.

Oh, and by the way, better professors will systematically have lower frequency of visits, at least for academic reasons; it's called selection bias in my version of Stats 101.

[kwaut lizard]

05:12 PM on 01/18/2012

You have gone off topic, it is simply looking at accessibility not occurrence of actual visits, nor is it a measure of the teachers actual ability to convey information. Stick with the initial unit being measured. In this instance the word 'accessible' may be interpreted as 'approachable' : meaning "easy to talk to". It is a measure of actual visual/verbal contact between two people.

I dropped two scholarships at reputable American universities over this very issue, American universities are renowned for inapproachable professors and even proctors, and I opted for the more open Lyceum oriented, Oxford educational system. The Lyceum system actually uses professor / student contact as part of its assessment requirements unlike the American system where your thesis takes precedence above all else, including basic communication with others. Access in the US system is the exception, not the rule.

[electricladyland]

02:07 PM on 01/18/2012

I don't recognize the building at Reed. Haven't been on campus since 1980 though.

[CAPTK]

01:56 PM on 01/18/2012

As with all these other lists, I still think all five service academies (West Point, Annapolis, USAFA, USCGA, USMMA) should be put in as one category since the only thing generally that distinguishes them is fluctuation in applications from year to year.

[suennui]

01:39 PM on 01/18/2012

My professors were so accessible that we used to party with them. Well, it was the drama department and we had lots of cast parties, so that may explain it. I do remember having a post examine review at Hooters and turning in a paper for my English composition class at a local bar.