Another great Smith ranking

The third annual Washington Monthly College Guide came out this moth. The guides' aim is to offer an alternative to U.S. News & World Report and the like. The Washington Monthly Guide seeks to focus on what colleges are doing for the country. Their site states, "The whole point is to recognize the broader role colleges and universities play in our national life and to reward those institutions that best fulfill that role... we rank colleges based on three criteria: social mobility, research, and service."

Smith College ranking among liberal arts colleges: #2
Overall Score: 95

Social Mobility
• % of students receiving Pell Grants: 28%
• Predicted/actual grad rate based on % of Pell recipients and incoming SATs: 73%/86%
• Difference between predicted/actual grad rates (rank): 13% (10)

Research
• Federal research grant dollars in millions (rank): $1907 (11)
• Rank of % of Bachelor's going onto PhD studies: #7

Service
• Peace Corps Rank: 58
• ROTC rank: 18
• % of federal work-study funds spent on community service (rank): 15% (60)

Explanation of Scores:
Overall Score: Overall score represents the combined score of our three metrics—social mobility, research, and service—where the highest is 100 and the lowest is zero. Each individual metric is worth 33 ¹/³ total points.
Social Mobility: The first column shows the percentage of students receiving Pell Grants. The second shows the predicted rate of graduation, based on incoming SAT scores and Pell Grant percentages, versus the actual rate of graduation. The third shows the difference between the actual graduation rate and the predicted graduation rate—a measure of how well the school performs as an engine of social mobility —arrived at by subtracting the latter from the former. (The higher the number, the better; negative numbers indicate subpar performance.) Rank follows in parentheses.
Research: The first column shows the number of dollars (in millions) received from the federal government in research grants. Rank follows in parentheses. The second shows the school’s ranking in the number of bachelor’s recipients who go on to receive PhDs.
Service: The first column ranks the school by percentage of students who go on to serve in the Peace Corps. The second column ranks the school by percentage of students who serve in ROTC. The third gives the percentage of funds in federal work-study money that goes to community service (versus noncommunity service); rank follows in parentheses.

And the Rankings are out....

The new US News and World Report college rankings are up and Smith has moved up from last year to land at #17. Smith also ranked in the following categories for liberal arts colleges:

Economic Diversity Among TOP Liberal Arts Colleges: #1
Schools that Award the Most Need-Based Aid: #2
Best Values: #7
Top Liberal Arts Colleges: #17
Campus Ethnic Diversity: #23
Economic Diversity Among ALL Liberal Arts Colleges: #75
Schools whose freshmen are least (and most) likely to return: Smith is roughly in the middle at 91% returning

The Princeton Review also released the following rankings:

Dorms Like Palaces: #1
Best Career/Job Placement Services: #8

Smith Ranks the Hottest

Smith and Northampton rank high this week...
Newsweek came out with the its Top 25 Hottest Universities list in the most recent addition and Smith came in as the hottest women's college. Newsweek characterizes the ranking as, "Instead of a numerical ranking, our list is a quick but colorful snapshot of today's most interesting schools. We've talked to a range of experts—admissions officials, educational consultants, students, parents, and college and university leaders—in making our selections. We've been particularly influenced by the views of high-school counselors, the people most in tune with what matters to the latest wave of college applicants."

Hottest Women's College
Smith College, Northampton, Mass.
With 2,800 students, Smith is the nation's largest women's college, and the first to start an engineering program. It is part of the Five Colleges consortium with nearby Mount Holyoke, Amherst, Hampshire and UMass Amherst. The facilities, particularly the cottage-style houses where students live in groups of 13 to 80, are so attractive that visitors originally preferring a coed college often change their minds. "Smith kind of won me over," says Katie Green, who thought she would go to a school with men. "When else in your life can you get the experience of being surrounded by smart, motivated young women who really care about what they're doing?"

Also making a best of list is Northampton. Smartertravel.com has ranked Northampton as one of 5 perfect college towns.

Want to avoid the hustle and bustle of Boston college life? Look no further than Northampton, a small New England city in the Berkshire foothills surrounded by no less than five colleges. The downtown area is filled with ma-and-pa-owned boutiques, coffee houses, hip restaurants, and theaters housed in historical buildings. Home to Smith College, the nation's largest liberal arts college for women, this funky little town is well-known for its art—many galleries feature local artists' work—and for its thriving gay and lesbian counter-culture scene.

In nearby Amherst, the University of Massachusetts Amherst is the top choice for more than 25,000 undergraduate and graduate students, and hosts some major musical acts. These two colleges, plus the others in the area, provide the perfect backdrop for a formal education in the natural setting of the Berkshires.

Finding things to do outside of the classroom is a breeze, as many outdoor activities throughout the year offer a break from the books, including rafting on the Connecticut River, biking along Smith campus, hiking in the mountains, and window-shopping along Main Street. What sets this town apart from others is its energy. It may be a small town, but it's big on all things creative.