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.

Our crime grades are generated using data from college campuses as well as data from the FBI.

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 the other schools in the system, with the colleges with the least amount of crime per capita receiving an A grade, and those with the most receiving an F grade.

We also include grades for the surrounding town or city, as well as the region. The overall grade for the school is a combination of all three of those factors.

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.

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.