![\"Nine](\"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/09\/2025-08-29-08-gcc-is-no-1-1-v2.jpg\")
Grove City College ranks No. 1 for the most religious students, according to The Princeton Review’s “The Best 391 Colleges” book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each fall, The Princeton Review releases its guidebook and student survey rankings on various topics ranging from politics to partying. In addition to topping the “most religious” list, the college ranked highly in several other categories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Grove City College deserves national recognition, and it feels good to be at the top of one of The Princeton Review lists,” Donald Opitz, director of Christian formation, said. “Of course, we recognize that ‘religious’ is a murky notion, as is the preferred word of many college-age students, ‘spiritual.’ Some students might be proud to be described as religious or as spiritual, but faithfulness is the higher aspiration that we are striving to embody,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grove City College has long been committed to championing conservative Christian values. The college requires students to attend 12 chapel services each semester. It is home to various organizations dedicated to Christian ministry, such as The Center for Rural Ministry, and it encourages professors to talk about their faith in the classroom. The college also sends teams of students on mission trips to cities across the country during spring break as a part of the inner-city outreach program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I believe the college’s values provide the perfect backdrop for life in Christian community and the friendly supportive culture captured by the survey. When the core values of faithfulness, community and excellence come together, it’s not hard to see Mark 12: 30-31 as a theme verse for our community \u2013 loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and loving our neighbor as ourselves,” Vice President for Student Life and Learning Larry Hardesty said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other rankings indicate the college provides a friendly and supportive community for students. The college ranked No. 2 for friendliest students, No. 8 for the category “their students love these colleges,” and No. 13 for both best quality of life and happiest students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Career services also made the list ranking No. 6 for best career services. The college also stood out in several categories relating to sobriety. Grove City ranked No. 7 for “Scotch and soda, hold the scotch,” No. 8 for “pot’s not hot” and No. 11 for “cancel the keg.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Junior John Bauer agreed that the college has a friendly environment. He believes the college’s Christian values influence the culture on campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I absolutely agree with this ranking! It’s rare to walk across campus without smiling at, waving at or enthusiastically greeting someone. Our shared faith in God both unites us and grants us joy that we’re eager to express,” Bauer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Junior Madylin Galbreath also finds the review’s ranking of the college’s friendly community to be accurate. She described the positive environment she has experienced in the classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“As a student at Grove City, I find it very easy to make friends with new people. Everyone is very kind, warm, inviting and happy to converse with you. If I’m in class and don’t know anyone, I feel confident reaching out to new people because I know they will be friendly,” Galbreath said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senior Juliana Marflak agreed that the ranking reflects the attitude of the student body at Grove City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’d say being ranked No. 2 for the friendliest students speaks volumes about the type of community and environment here at Grove City. If you ask for help, our peers will go the extra mile to make sure you get where you need to be and do what you need to do,” Marflak said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The college’s counseling center also topped the review’s rankings. Grove City was No. 2 for the best student support and counseling services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grove City’s counseling center works with other campus organizations, including Campus Safety, the Office of Christian Formation and Resident Life to build a campus culture prioritizing caring for students’ mental health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“While individual counseling remains our primary means of caring for students, our team has made significant progress in reaching out and serving the larger campus community. We have been able to effectively collaborate with other campus departments, including faculty, Campus Safety, Christian Formation and residential staff, to foster a campus-wide approach to student mental health,” Counseling Center Director Jeffrey Richter said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I believe these efforts have positively impacted the counseling center’s visibility on campus as a resource for student thriving and community flourishing,” Richter added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The college ranked No. 3 in the Most Politically Conservative Students category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The result is not surprising, especially when compared to The Collegian survey before last November’s election, in which nearly 80 percent of students indicated they were voting for Trump. Grove City College certainly values things that appeal to socially and politically conservative students and their parents \u2014 and so it makes sense that conservative students choose Grove City,” Grove City Professor of Political Science Michael Coulter said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The college was also ranked third for the category LGBTQ-Unfriendly. Senior Alexandar Fix disagreed with the review’s assessment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The student body as a whole treats all people with love and respect as our Lord instructs us to do. I am not sure how we are No. 2 for friendliest students and also at the same time unfriendly towards the LGBTQ community,” Fix said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The college’s professors received scores of 92\/99 for the interest of their classes and a 95\/99 for their accessibility to students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The responses to 170,000 student surveys determined the order of colleges for each topic. The 391 institutions cataloged in the guidebook represent the top 15 percent of U.S. colleges and universities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The survey asked students 98 questions about their schools’ academics and administration, life at their college, their fellow students and themselves. Each question in the survey provided a statement and asked students how strongly they agree or disagree with it. Some questions asked students on a scale of “poor” to “excellent” about topics, while others requested them to respond with a percentage. The Princeton Review ranked the top 25 colleges for each category.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Grove City College’s students are most religious according to Princeton Review<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":2060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[184],"tags":[15,72,18],"class_list":["post-900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-administration","tag-issue-2025-08-29","tag-emily-fox","tag-news"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/09\/2025-08-29-08-gcc-is-no-1-1-v2.jpg",1280,727,false],"thumbnail":["\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/09\/2025-08-29-08-gcc-is-no-1-1-v2.jpg",150,85,false],"medium":["\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/09\/2025-08-29-08-gcc-is-no-1-1-v2.jpg",300,170,false],"medium_large":["\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/09\/2025-08-29-08-gcc-is-no-1-1-v2.jpg",768,436,false],"large":["\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/09\/2025-08-29-08-gcc-is-no-1-1-v2.jpg",1024,582,false],"1536x1536":["\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/09\/2025-08-29-08-gcc-is-no-1-1-v2.jpg",1280,727,false],"2048x2048":["\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/09\/2025-08-29-08-gcc-is-no-1-1-v2.jpg",1280,727,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Ian Schartner","author_link":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/author\/schartnerij23\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Grove City College's students are most religious according to Princeton Review","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2243,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900\/revisions\/2243"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}