College of the Atlantic students and COA W.H. Drury Professor of Ecology/Natural History Dr. John...College of the Atlantic students and COA W.H. Drury Professor of Ecology/Natural History Dr. John Anderson (in green) celebrate Pride Day at the COA Alice Eno Field Research Station on Great Duck Island.

College of the Atlantic is committed to cultivating an academically rigorous, socially just, sustainable, inclusive environment, and these rankings are a demonstration of that commitment,” said COA President Darron Collins ’92.

The Review, which is based on student surveys, ranks COA at #3 for Most Active Student Government, #7 for LGBTQ-Friendly, and #7 for Students Study the Most. The College comes in at #10 for Most Liberal Students, #13 for Best Campus Food, and #7 for There’s a Game?, reflecting the school’s lack of organized sports. The school comes in at #12 for Lots of Race/Class Interaction, and #20 for Tree-Hugging Vegetarians.

“A hop, skip, and a jump from stunning Acadia National Park, with its campus on Maine’s Frenchman Bay, College of the Atlantic (COA) offers undergraduates ‘an extreme degree of academic freedom.’ COA’s ‘interdisciplinary structure’ lets Fieldwork, experiential learning, and real-world applications contribute towards COA's rigoro...Fieldwork, experiential learning, and real-world applications contribute towards COA's rigorous academic program, leading a #7 national ranking for places where students study the most.students create their own course of study with creative pedagogy from professors who regularly ‘provide immersive activities such as field work, class trips, and experiential opportunities,’” this year’s review states. “Students have numerous internship, residency, and study abroad opportunities, all of which complement the school’s ‘culture of social responsibility and environmental sustainability.’”

Only about 13% of America’s 3,000 four-year colleges are profiled in The Princeton Review. School profiles and total of 62 ranking lists in The Best 385 Colleges are posted at princetonreview.com/best385, where they can be searched for free with site registration.

“We salute College of the Atlantic for its outstanding academics and we are truly pleased to recommend it to prospective applicants searching for their personal ‘best-fit’ college,” said Robert Franek, The Princeton Review’s editor-in-chief and lead author of “The Best 385 Colleges.”

The Princeton Review chooses the colleges for the book based on data it annually collects from administrators at hundreds of colleges about their institutions’ academic offerings. The Review also considers data it gathers from its surveys of college students who rate and report on various aspects of their campus and community experiences for this project.

COA's Take-a-Break features food from the college's own farms that satisfies vegans and o...COA's Take-a-Break features food from the college's own farms that satisfies vegans and omnivores alike. The Princeton Review ranks COA at #13 out of 385 for Best Campus Food.College of the Atlantic believes that education should go beyond understanding the world as it is to enabling students to actively shape the future. COA is a leader in experiential learning and environmental stewardship, and is the Princeton Review’s #1 Green College 2016-2019. Every COA student designs their own major in human ecology—which integrates knowledge from across academic disciplines and seeks to understand and improve the relationships between humans and their natural, built, and social environments—and sets their own path toward a degree. The intentionally small school of 350 students and 35 faculty members was founded in 1969 and offers Bachelor of Arts and Master of Philosophy degrees. 

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