GW IS “HOT,” SAYS POPULAR COLLEGE GUIDE

Kaplan/Newsweek Says University Offers “Outstanding Value”

WASHINGTON – The George Washington University has been named one of this year’s 12 “hottest colleges” by the 2002 Kaplan/Newsweek How to Get Into College guide, which went on sale at newsstands and bookstores August 26.

In a profile on GW, the guide says, “students drawn to politics can’t do better than study down the street from the White House. And at GW, they can even share the spotlight.  CNN’s political show ‘Crossfire’ broadcasts from the University’s new Media and Public Affairs building, where students can sit in the audience.”

The guide takes further note of GW’s location in the heart of the nation’s capital when it says, “The [Elliott] School of International Affairs is just across the street from the State Department—to give students something concrete to aspire to.” 

“What we’re doing is taking the city of Washington and integrating it into George Washington University so that we take one plus one and come out with three,” says GW President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg in the profile.

GW is the only school in the Washington, D.C. area on the list.  Others include Arizona State University, Boston College, University of California at Santa Barbara, Davidson College, Kenyon College, Macalester College, University of Maryland-Baltimore County, McGill University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Pepperdine University, and University of Washington at Seattle.

Recognizing GW’s record number of applications for admission (17,000 in 2001-02), the guide says, “Many professors, especially adjuncts, are likely to have real-world experience either as foreign service officers (and even a few ambassadors) or as policy analysts at Washington think tanks. With nine schools and literally hundreds of undergraduate majors, GW attracts an especially diverse student body.”

The University has taken great strides in creating an inviting campus in its urban setting, prompting Kaplan/Newsweek to say: “The campus itself has also been spruced up.  The new [Kogan] Plaza is a large indoor and outdoor area filled with sculptures, a rotunda, fountains, benches and parks.  That helps give GW a physical center—the lack of which is often a problem for urban schools.”

GW was created by an Act of Congress in 1821. Today, it is the largest institution of higher education in the nation’s capital.  The University offers comprehensive programs of undergraduate and graduate liberal arts study as well as degree programs in medicine, law, engineering, education, business/public management and international affairs.

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