Submitted by The Evergreen State College
The Princeton Review has named The Evergreen State College one of The Best 380 Colleges of 2016.
Seven Washington colleges and universities have been included in the guide. In addition to Evergreen, Gonzaga University, Seattle University, University of Puget Sound, University of Washington, Washington State University and Whitman College made the list.
As part of the guide, The Princeton Review puts forth 62 ranking lists that provide students with details about campus and academic culture, size, type and quality of residence halls, dining and more. These sub-lists give college applicants, “a way to see the types of colleges that could help them achieve their future goals and dreams,” said Robert Franek, Princeton Review’s Senior VP-Publisher. “Our goal is to help applicants choose and get into their dream college—the college best for them.”
“We believe all 380 schools in the book are academically outstanding,” the guide’s editors note. “But we don’t think academics should be the exclusive reason for choosing a school—and in most cases, it isn’t. Among other crucial factors (such as location, cost and size), the campus culture is very important. The schools featured in The 380 Best Colleges—our picks of the cream of the crop colleges and universities—comprise only the top 15 percent of all four-year colleges in the nation. These are all very different schools with different and wonderful things to offer.”
According to the guide’s “Inside Word” on Evergreen, “Students… are commonly some of the strongest performers from their high schools…The school’s unique and self-directed academic curriculum favors those students who can adequately handle the responsibility of creating and developing their own educational path.”
The review notes that students describe Evergreen as welcoming, with a “booming extracurricular life” and a “thriving local art and music scene.”
Students also gave high marks to their faculty. “My professors have been A++, if Evergreen gave grades,” one student was quoted as saying, in a reference to Evergreen’s unique narrative evaluation process in lieu of letter grades.
“While no single college guide or ranking tells the whole story about a school,” said Evergreen spokesman Todd Sprague, “we’re pleased that The Princeton Review has once again cited Evergreen as one of the best colleges in the nation.”
