Clemson University ranks No. 2 out of 171 universities in the United States and Canada according to a recent survey. The survey was conducted by Studocu, a leading online study platform for college students. StuDocu surveyed more than 20,000 college students and graduates on fifteen different topics to paint a picture of how students feel about their own universities.

Unlike other ranking systems, StuDocu’s approach is based solely on student perceptions of their own schools. StuDocu asked users of its platform to rank their colleges on a scale of 0-10 for each of the fifteen categories. Among the topics surveyed are job opportunities, quality of courses, food, sports culture, safety, diversity and inclusivity, dating scene and greek life, social clubs and student associations. 

Clemson University scored a 9.7 overall and is preceded only by California State University Fullerton, which scored a 9.8 overall. Clemson is the only school to receive a perfect score of 10.0 in the sports culture category. 

The university also ranked highly for academics, coming in at No. 4 for quality of courses with a score of 9.4. Clemson ranked No. 2 for greek life, social clubs and student associations with a score of 9.7. The university also ranked highly for safety with a score of 9.5.
The biggest areas of improvement lie in financial aid and diversity and inclusion. Clemson students gave the university scores of 7.0 for financial aid and 8.2 for diversity and inclusion. 

StuDocu specifies in the description of its survey methodology that schools were ranked by an average of 60 current or former students. Then, data scientists used a special algorithm to generate responses that “conform statistically to the trend of actual given scores.” Though the results are stated to be statistically significant, the sample size used is low compared to similar surveys conducted by other organizations.

StuDocu does not provide school-specific information outlining how many students were surveyed from each school, nor do they specify how many of the survey respondents were current students and how many were alumni. 

However, the popular Princeton Review list of best colleges ranks Clemson University No. 1 for Town-Gown Relations, No. 4 for “Students Pack the Stadium” and No. 5 for “Their Students Love These Colleges.” Similarly to the StuDocu survey, the Princeton Review list is based entirely on what students say about their own schools, so these rankings seem to back up Clemson’s No. 2 ranking from the StuDocu survey.