In the U.S. News & World Report 2005 edition of America’s Best Colleges, Bates is ranked 22nd among 217 national liberal arts colleges. The magazine says its rankings are based on a mix of peer assessment, rates of student retention and graduation, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources and alumni giving. Since 1987, with the exception of 1991, Bates’ rank has ranged from 18th to 23rd.

In the “programs to look for” section, Bates continues to be cited among colleges and universities with “undergraduate research/creative projects”, and is now included among institutions with excellent service learning programs. These unranked lists are determined entirely on the number of times the College was nominated by presidents, chief academic officers, and deans of students who responded to the U.S. News reputation survey.

Bates ranks 10th among colleges and universities for the proportion of students who studied abroad (70%), and 19th among liberal arts colleges and national universities with the highest average graduation rates (85%) within four years.

In this year’s Princeton Review “The Best 357 Colleges,” Bates is ranked fifth among 77 schools selected as “America’s Best-Value Colleges.”

“Financial aid awarded at Bates is need-based, and the school does a laudable job meeting the full financial need of its students,” according to the Princeton Review Web site. “Bates has an outside scholarship program you are going to love; students who are awarded non-Bates scholarships are not penalized. In most cases, financial aid grants are not reduced because of outside awards you receive.”

Other Princeton Review ratings of Bates, on a scale of 100:

• Overall Quality of Life: 91
• Academic Rating: 96
• Admissions Selectivity: 97
• Financial Aid: 92

Bates is listed among 433 colleges in Peterson’s Competitive Colleges for 2005, and among the select few colleges in the “Most Competitive” category of Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges.

Bates is included in the 2005 edition of Fiske Guide to Colleges by former New York Times education editor Edward B. Fiske. “Its 4-4-1 calendar offers ample opportunity for study abroad, even for just one month at the year’s end,” the guide says. “The school’s small size also means student/faculty interaction is plentiful, and close friendships are easily formed.”

Bates was one of 320 schools selected for a profile in the Yale Daily News Insider’s Guide to the Colleges 2005.The first-paragraph introduction concludes: “From its ancient Outing Club to its intimate academic opportunities, it is not hard to see why a common senior reflection is, ‘I can’t imagine myself not being part of the immediate Bates community.’”

In “The Hidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of Excellence,” Bates is lauded for its service-learning opportunities and its consistent ranking in the top 10 among all colleges in terms of student participation in international study. It notes that some two-thirds of Bates 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.”

In the U.S. News & World Report 2001 edition of “America’s Best Colleges,” Bates is ranked 19th among 162 national liberal arts colleges. The magazine compares a variety of factors, including academic reputation, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, graduation rate and alumni giving rate. In a separate listing, Bates is ranked among the top 10 for selectivity.

In the most recent annual ranking by Yahoo! Internet Life Magazine, Bates College ranked third among the “most wired” college campuses in the nation.

“The Fiske Guide to Colleges 2001″ notes that the Lewiston-Auburn area “provides plenty of internships and part-time jobs, a distinct vocational advantage….” It concludes its listing with this quote from a Bates student: “I go to school in one of the prettiest areas of the country, eat some of the best college food … am taught by interesting, engaging professors that really make me rethink the way that I look at the world … and I love it.”