The University of Mary Washington has been named to The Princeton Review’s 2014 edition of “The Best 378 Colleges.” The Princeton Review is a New York City-based education services company that annually publishes guidebooks ranking colleges, business and law schools. The annual college guide includes detailed profiles of the colleges with school rating scores in eight categories, including admissions selectivity, academics and quality of life. In its profile, The Princeton Review says UMW students applaud the small student body and class sizes for fostering close interactions with faculty members. “Students believe UMW is ‘a hidden jewel that delivers on a historical campus’ and say courses are ‘engaging and intellectually stimulating,’” according to UMW’s profile. “Overall, students agree, ‘Mary Washington is all about getting a well-rounded education while becoming a part of a great community’ and point out that ‘professors are included in that as well.’” Only about 15 percent of America’s 2,500 four-year colleges and three colleges outside the U.S. are profiled in the book. “We base our selections primarily on data we obtain in our annual institutional data surveys,” said Robert Franek, author of “The Best 378 Colleges” and Princeton Review’s senior vice president and publisher. “We also take into account input we get from our staff, our 35-member National College Counselor Advisory Board, our personal visits to schools, and the wide range of feedback we get from our surveys of students attending these schools.  It is their opinions that college applicants often value the most, particularly on (or in the absence of) campus visits. We also work to keep a wide representation of colleges in the book by region, size, selectivity and character.” The full list is available at www.PrincetonReview.com.

# # #

News release prepared by: Brynn Boyer