Andrews University recently dropped from fourth best Christian college in America to 19th on Niche, a platform that rates and ranks schools across the U.S. This was because of a “miscalculation in the rankings they originally posted,” according to Anthony Bosman, chair of the Andrews University Department of Mathematics.
Earlier this month, Andrews University was ranked No. 4 for “Best Christian Colleges in America” but is currently No. 19, dropping a staggering 15 places. Bosman explained that Niche reached out last week to explain that a “change in their calculation” was responsible for this drop.
In the message, Niche says that they “issued an updated release of its 2025 Best Colleges rankings after identifying a miscalculation that impacted the accuracy of some rankings and/or grades for institutions. The data bug at fault, which impacted how we factor in user reviews, has been fixed and the updated results are now available on Niche. The revised 2025 overall grade for Andrews University has remained the same.”
When opening up the current Andrews University Niche page, Andrews is scored a general grade of “A-,” being attributed “B+” in academics, “A+” in diversity, “C-” in athletics, “A-” in value, “C+” in campus and “C-” in party scene, with more grades visible within the report card feature. Notable rankings include that Andrews is No. 2 of 1,495 “Most Diverse Colleges in America,” No. 118 out of 584 for Kinesiology and Physical Therapy in America and No. 163 out of 1,344 for best college food in America.
How exactly are these rankings determined, though?
Niche details their seven-step approach to establishing rankings on their website. Data is gathered from both user data and student-submitted surveys, as well as “factual information.” It is a complicated process of compiling data, removing or adjusting inaccurate information or exceptions, re-compiling, and so on and so forth. At the end of the lengthy process, the completeness of the data for each individual college is evaluated, bringing us to the final product, which is the numerical ranking.
While Andrews did experience an overall drop in rankings this year, after being ranked in the top 15 U.S. Christian colleges last year, Bosman says, “Nevertheless, it is still a great honor to be ranked among the top 20 from the over 500 Christian Colleges that Niche assesses.” He also added that “we remain the highest ranked Adventist university on the list of Best Christian Colleges.”
On a positive note, Andrews jumped up 47 spots from last year’s ranking of national universities by the U.S. News & World Report.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.