U.S. News Top Liberal Arts Colleges: Bates is ranked as No. 22 among the 218 top national liberal arts colleges in 2001-2002. Bates was ranked 19th among liberal arts colleges in "selectivity" and 12th in the "alumni giving" category. According to data published by U.S. News, Bates was ranked 8th among U.S. liberal arts colleges having the lowest applicant acceptance rates for the class entering in fall of 2000. It was cited as 4th in the percentage of students who earned credit for study abroad. Bates was ranked 20th in the overall graduation and retention category.

Bates College has been singled out as a top institution of higher learning, according to the results of a 1999 guidance counselor survey published in the Kaplan Newsweek College Catalog 2000.

Kaplan recently surveyed guidance counselors in public and private high schools across the country to determine which colleges they recommend to their students and why. The Kaplan guide cited special recognition to Bates as an outstanding school in the following categories:

• Schools for the Academically Competitive Student
• Schools that are "Hidden Treasures"
• Schools Offering the Maximum Amount of Individual Academic Attention
• Schools Providing a Good Liberal Arts Education
• Schools with Notable Study Abroad Programs

Bates is one of thirty colleges profiled as a "college of excellence" in The Hidden Ivies, by Howard R. Greene and Matthew W. Greene, published by HarperCollins Publishers, 2000.

In 2000, Bates was ranked by Yahoo! Internet Life as one of the top three "most wired" liberal arts colleges in the country.

Bates News Releases
Sports Information and Results
The Bates Daily
Monthly Calendar, with links to other specialized calendars.
List of Student Organizations and Committees
Participation in College Activities (Senior Survey 1999)

Fall to Fall Persistence
Persistence rates show the percentage of students who are still enrolled after a year. Of the members of the first-year cohort of students who entered in the Fall of 1999, 94% returned as active students in the Fall of 2000.  According to data published by U.S. News and World Report (September 1, 2000), Bates ranked among the top 44 national colleges and universities in first-year to sophomore return rates.

Fall to fall persistence rates at Bates are typically about 20 percentage points higher than the national average rates for private B.A./B.S. institutions.  [see chart]

Graduation Rates
Graduation rates for an entering group of students are typically calculated for four, five, and six-year periods. In a national environment where students often take six or more years to graduate, almost all Bates students graduate within the traditional four-year period.

National graduation rate statistics are typically reported on a six-year basis. Bates has calculated an 87.2% six-year graduation rate for first-time students who entered in the Fall of 1995, using the Student Right To Know guidelines published in the July 10, 1992 Federal Register. 

Comparable national statistics are only available after some delay. For the cohort entering in Fall 1993, the six-year graduation rate for Bates College was 87%.  According to comparative information published by U.S. News and World Report (September 1, 2000), this places Bates among the top 34 national liberal arts colleges and national universities. 

The 5-year graduation rate for the cohort entering in Fall 1996 (86%) was well above average national graduation rates.  [see chart]

Learning at Bates goes well beyond the classroom doors. A variety of internship and study-away opportunities are available. Bates students have the opportunity to study abroad in programs sponsored by Bates or by dozens of other institutions. Bates has been a pioneer in service learning, and students have many opportunities to make a difference in the Lewiston/Auburn community.

Internships
Recent Ladd Internship Program Sponsors: This program offers sophomores and juniors the chance to work in a "real life" situation, gaining the benefits of exploring a serious job interest as well as getting paid.

Career Discovery Internships: The Career Discovery Internship Program (CDIP) is designed to give Bates students a glimpse into one of many career fields. Alumni from across the country have set up week-long internships at their places of work to introduce students to their jobs and work environments.

The Venture Consortium: Bates is one of eight members of this program that helps locate time-away and summer opportunities for undergraduates, with a goal of fostering social awareness and a sense of social responsibility among students through experiential learning, and building mutually useful connections between institutions of higher learning and the larger community.

The Intern Center: Bates participates in a 25-college consortium to help students locate suitable internships.

Service Learning
Service-Learning at Bates is a partnership among students, faculty, and community agencies, where all parties serve, learn, and teach. More than half the student body has engaged in a service-learning project, while a third of the faculty has included a service component in their courses. Examples of service-learning projects.

According to the Center for Service-Learning, in 1999-2000:

• Approximately 59,381 hours of of service were given by Bates students through service-learning projects.  (This does not include hours of service through volunteer service.)
• The Center counseled and helped place 515 students in connection with service learning projects. 
• 118 different departments and programs and 40 faculty members incorporated some form of service-learning into their curricula.
• Approximately 139 community agencies and institutions were involved with Bates service-learning projects.

International Study
Sixty-five percent of the members of the Class of 2000 earned some credit for study abroad. Between 1990-1991 and 1999-2000, Bates students participated in Junior Semester Abroad programs in 70 countries, and Junior Year Abroad programs in 43 countries. In 2001, U.S. News and World Report (September 10, 2001) showed that Bates ranked 4th in a list of national colleges and universities with the greatest percentage of its students studying abroad.

First-Year Seminars
First-year seminars are optional limited enrollment courses that may be taken only by first-year students. They enable entering students to work with faculty and other students in the context of a small class; they provide closely supervised training in techniques of reasoning, writing, and research; and they foster an attitude of active participation in the educational process. In 2000-2001, 53% of entering first-year students enrolled in a first-year seminar. A list of recent first-year seminars is found in the College Catalog.

Student-designed Interdisciplinary majors
Students may propose an individual interdisciplinary major, should they discover a well-defined intellectual interest that crosses one or more boundaries of the established fields of concentration. See some recent examples of student-designed majors.

Faculty-Student Publications
More than 30 Bates students have been credited as co-authors of faculty publications between 1995 and 1998. Twenty-nine percent of respondents to the 1999 Senior Survey (administered every other year)said that they had worked with a faculty member on that faculty member's research, and twenty percent said that they had published a paper or presented it off campus.

Senior Honors Thesis Abstracts
Eighty-nine percent of the members of the graduating Class of 2001 did a senior thesis or a senior project. Many participate in the thesis Honors Program, which requires the writing of a substantial thesis, and an oral examination on the thesis and the major field. The oral-examination committee includes the thesis advisor, members of the major department, at least one faculty member not a member of the major department, and an examiner from another college or university who specializes in the field of study. See titles of some recent honors thesis topics.

Scholarships and Fellowships

Jason Surdukowski '02, Harry S. Truman Scholar for commitment to a career in government or the not-for-profit sector.

Kurt Eilhardt '02, Fulbright Scholar, University of Oslo, Norway.

Jeffrey R. Bastien '00, Fulbright Scholar, Georgius-Agricola-Gymnasium, Chemnitz, Germany.

Courtney A. Elf '00, Beinecke Brothers Memorial scholarship for graduate study, Boston University School of the Arts.

Kate H. Kenoyer '00, Fulbright Scholar, Hamburg, Germany.

Kari Jorgensen '99, Fulbright Scholar, Middle Eastern studies.

Renee Leduc '98, Fulbright Scholar, Community-based natural-resource projects, Malawi.

Melissa Leier '98, Fulbright Scholar, University of Innsbruck, Austria.

Watson Fellows and their studies.

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