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- Outside Magazine, September 2003
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- We rank the TOP 40 SCHOOLS where you can hit the books AND the
backcountry. Your assignment: Rappel off that ivory tower and
take our cram course on America's most adrenaline-friendly colleges.
You'll come for your B.A. (Bachelor of Adventure) and want to stay for life.
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- When it came to ranking NORTH AMERICA'S BEST PLACES to learn, live, work,
and play, we did our homework, canvassing hundreds of colleges and enlisting
an able crew of undergrad reporters. Then we narrowed the honor roll
down to 40 schools that turn out smart grads with top-notch academic
credentials, a healthy environmental ethos, and an A+ sense of adventure.
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- 20) SOUTHERN OREGON UNIVERSITY, Ashland, Oregon.
- Local Color Within two hours of Ashland,
you'll find five world-class whitewater rivers: the Rogue, the Upper
Klamath, the Salmon, the Scott, and the North Umpqua. The
5,000-plus-foot Siskiyou, Cascade, and Klamath mountains wrap around three
sides of town. But it's not just paddlers and climbers who are drawn
to this community of 20,000 in southwest Oregon. Ashland's thriving
theater scene and the eight-month Shakespeare Festival attract artsy
visionaries from through the Pacific Northwest and California.
- Word on the Quad On Sunny days, the Stevenson
Union courtyard on SOU's green 175-acre campus fills with students in frayed
corduroys and the requisite rafting sandals. Hardly anyone graduates
without paddling southern Oregon's whitewater, hiking the 2.3-mile White
Rabbit Trail, or snowboarding or skiing the 7,530-foot Mount Ashland.
Students interested in natural-resource management enroll in the
environmental studies program for biology, geology and environmental policy
courses; field-oriented classes like Geology of the Rogue River also get
students outdoors.
- Extra Credit Thanks to the theatrical
influence, Halloween is huge in Ashland: Prepare for wild parties and
creative costuming.
- Vital Stats Contact:
541-552-7672, www.sou.edu; STUDENT BODY:
5,000 undergraduates, 560 graduates; TUITION: residents $4,113;
nonresidents, $12,783; room and board, $5,500.
- -- Jennifer Squires
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- 1. University of California at Santa Cruz, Santa
Cruz, California
- 2. University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder,
Colorado
- 3. Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont
- 4. Warren Wilson College, Asheville, North Carolina
- 5. Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana
- 6. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British
Columbia, Canada
- 7. Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
- 8. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia
- 9. Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona
- 10. University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa
- 11. University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont
- 12. Humboldt State University, Arcata, California
- 13. Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colorado
- 14. Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
- 15. University of Montana, Missoula, Montana
- 16. Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine
- 17. Stanford University, Palo Alto, California
- 18. University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin
- 19. University of Hawaii, Hilo, Hawaii
- 20. Southern Oregon University, Ashland,
Oregon
- 21. Prescott College, Prescott, Arizona
- 22. Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts
- 23. University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas
- 24. Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington
- 25. St. John's College, Santa Fe, New Mexico
- 26. Sheldon Jackson College, Sitka, Alaska
- 27. Brevard College, Brevard, North Carolina
- 28. University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon
- 29. University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho
- 30. Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colorado
- 31. Alaska Pacific University, Anchorage, Alaska
- 32.University of California at San Diego, La Jolla,
California
- 33. University of Arizona, Tuscon, Arizona
- 34. University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming
- 35. Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
- 36. University of Minnesota - Duluth, Duluth, Minnesota
- 37. California Polytechnic State University, San Luis
Obispo, California
- 38. University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia
- 39. University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
- 40. University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida
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