About Our Crime Ratings

Under the student life section we include a page with information on campus crime, as well as crime in the local area. Each school receives a letter grade with A being the least amount of crime and F being the most.

1. How We Calculate Crime Grades

Our crime grades are generated using data from:

• College campuses
• FBI crime statistics

1.1 Weighting and Scoring

Our scoring system takes into account several factors:

• Grades are weighted based on the size of the campus
• For example, two counts of crime in a school with only 100 people will receive a lower crime grade than twenty counts of crime on a campus with 2,000 people
• The grade is generated based on the scores of all other schools in the system:
  • Schools with the least amount of crime per capita receive an A grade
  • Schools with the most receive an F grade

1.2 Regional Factors

We include grades for multiple areas:

• The campus itself
• The surrounding town or city
• The region

The overall grade for the school is a combination of all three factors.

2. Important Considerations

College campuses generally have fairly low amounts of reported crime, which is why a school may appear to have a poor grade while still not having a lot of crime.

Important Note: We encourage you to not make a hasty judgment about a school based on their crime grade. Schools that appear to have a poor crime grade may not necessarily be less safe than other schools. A higher rate of reported crime (which would result in a lower grade in our system) may simply mean the school does a better job of enforcing rules and has more security on campus.