In the 2023 guide, released in August, COA is ranked #1 in “Green matters: everyone cares about conservation,” #3 in “Colleges with most active student governments,” #4 in “Professors that get high marks,” #5 in “Most liberal colleges,” #8 in “Students that study the most,” #10 in “Great financial aid,” and #19 in “Best campus food.”
COA fosters a close-knit, intellectually curious, engaged community with a compassionate, environmental ethos, according to the Princeton Review. Undergraduate students surveyed for surveyed for the guide describe the community as “welcoming [and] kind,” and rooted in “compassion…for people, plants, animals and the planet.”
“I’ve never felt more able to freely explore…and find out who I want to be and how I want to express myself,” one student says. “As a queer person coming from a very conservative background, COA was like a breath of fresh air.”
Strategically located between Maine’s Frenchman Bay and Acadia National Park, COA opened its 51st academic year in fall 2022 with a total enrollment of 379 undergraduate students. Each COA student designs their own course of study under the umbrella of human ecology, an interdisciplinary, experiential approach to the liberal arts, focused on the relationships between humans and their social, natural, and built environments.
“Any of these rankings taken on their own would be valuable, but the combination of them is what tells the unique story of College of the Atlantic,” says COA President Darron Collins ’92. “The mix of intellectual passion, critical reasoning, creativity, and self-directed, interdisciplinary study at COA creates an inclusive environment that gives graduates everything they need to grapple with the world’s complex problems.”
COA’s compassionate ethos spreads throughout campus and extends into the practices, policies, values, and behaviors of the college and its members, the review states. The school’s motto, “Life changing, world changing,” carries the sentiment that students are learning and growing at COA in order to use their resources and knowledge to make the world a better place.
“The institution strives to shape its students into ‘more creative…and critical thinkers’ and really allows every undergrad to ‘construct [their] own unique path.’ One way they accomplish this is through the school’s ‘inclusive governance system,’” the review states.
The weekly All College Meeting (ACM) is central to the COA’s tradition of self-governance. Nearly a day a week is kept free of classes and set aside for ACM, school clubs, and other participatory governance activities.
“At ACM you are present with peers and professors and really get to watch this process of making practical choices, you get to see how real issues manifest and get to think through a solution that will work for you and the college,” says Ananya Singh ’24, who has done an independent study on governance at COA and works closely with ACM.
COA staff and faculty are noted by the review for their contributions to the close-knit community. “The professors at COA are ‘incredibly kind and educated,’” the profile states. With a 10:1 faculty/student ratio, professors and students get to know each other personally, helping students to feel supported and energized about what they are studying.
meeting 98% of student financial need. Just over one-third of COA students are eligible for the Pell Grant, a federal financial aid program for low-income undergraduates.
Staff at COA also care deeply about providing resources for students and making the college accessible and affordable,College of the Atlantic is premised on the belief 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 has been named the #1 Green College in the US by The Princeton Review since 2016. The intentionally small school of 350 students and 35 faculty members offers a Bachelor of Arts degree in human ecology—the study of how humans interact with our natural, social and technological environments. Each student develops their own course of study in human ecology, collaborating and innovating across multiple disciplines. Learn more at coa.edu.
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