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National college guides and magazines continue to rank ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College among the best liberal arts colleges in the nation.

The 2002 Princeton Review: The Best 331 Colleges offers a variety of “top 20″ lists. Its ratings for ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ include Toughest to Get Into (18th) and Great Food (12th). Under Academics it says: ‘”If you were to give us a nickel for every time a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College student tells us ‘this school is great; I just love it,’ or ‘I have had such a positive experience here’ or something along those lines, we could probably stop updating this book every year and retire to a nice island in the South Pacific.’”

In the U.S. News & World Report 2002 edition of “America’s Best Colleges,” ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ is ranked 22nd among 218 national liberal arts colleges. The factors the magazine considers include academic reputation, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, graduation rate and alumni giving rate. The national liberal arts college category was expanded from 162 to 218 for the 2002 edition. Last year, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ was in the top 12 percent of the category. This year, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ is ranked in the top 10 percent in the nation.

In the Kaplan/Newsweek College Catalog 2002, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ is recognized as a top school in the category: “Schools that offer a high level of individual attention from faculty.”

The 27th edition of The Insiders’ Guide to the Colleges leads with this undergraduate’s remark about ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½: “The professors are more available than most students’ parents.”

In the most recent edition of The Hidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of Excellence, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ is lauded for its service-learning opportunities and its consistent top-10 ranking for student participation in international study among all colleges. It notes that about two-thirds of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ graduates earn graduate degrees, and includes this summary comment from an administrator on alumni survey findings: “For a college with a long-standing reputation in the sciences, we were surprised to discover we had more graduates whose title was ‘entrepreneur,’ having founded their own businesses, than graduates who were M.D.’s.”

The Fiske Guide to Colleges 2002 notes that the Lewiston-Auburn area “provides plenty of internships and part-time jobs, a distinct vocational advantage not always found at such small colleges.” Its listing concludes with these quotes from ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students: ” ‘ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ has a strong sense of community, and students here look out for one another socially and academically,’ says a political science major. One freshman is sold. ‘It’s a fun place,’ the student says. ‘People just seem happy here.’”