The University of Mary Washington continues to be among the top universities in the college guidebooks. UMW is ranked regionally as a “best bang for the buck” choice and listed among the nation’s top 100 liberal arts colleges in Washington Monthly. Mary Washington is also included in The Best 390 Colleges, the latest higher education rankings edition from The Princeton Review.
The Princeton Review rankings come straight from student surveys focused on their college experiences. For UMW, the survey says that students are happy, love Fredericksburg, Virginia, and find majors and activities that matter to them. Biology, psychology, business administration, and communication and digital studies rise to the top of the list of popular pursuits, and UMW Theatre earns a spot in the best 25 theatre programs for the second year in a row. Mary Washington also received a place in the publication’s Best Regional Colleges category, landing among the top 100 schools in the Mid-Atlantic region.
Noted for offering a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary programs and a “small community with plenty of individualized attention for students,” Mary Washington and its accolades center on students.
“Every student at Mary Washington has a different background and a different perspective to offer … which makes things in the classroom 10 times more interesting and engaging,” said one student survey respondent. Students also noted that “kindness is widespread, and when you are trusted and respected in the community, many students embrace you as a peer.”
That support extends from the campus experience through academics. As one student summarized, faculty “want you to succeed and outline their classes in such a way that success is easy if you stay caught up with assignments,” and they “devote plenty of class time to discussions around real topics and situations to help ensure we come out prepared.”
Students also should be prepared when they apply. While UMW is test optional, rigor of high school courses and GPA are important factors. Interviews; extracurricular activities, including volunteer and work experience; and standardized test scores may be considered, and The Princeton Review shares as “an inside word” that all aspects of the application carry some weight. Successful applicants tend to have a handful of honors, advanced placement and/or IB classes.
That well-rounded approach puts Mary Washington on The Princeton Review’s list annually.
“The colleges we profile in our book are truly a select group: they constitute about 15% of America’s four-year institutions. We chose them primarily based on our high opinion of their academic offerings,” said Rob Franek, editor-in-chief at The Princeton Review and author of The Best 390 Colleges. “The colleges that make our book’s ranking lists do so entirely as a result of the opinions of their customers – students attending the colleges – who complete our 89-question survey about their school.”
The Princeton Review tallied surveys of 168,000 students – about 430 per school on average. The rankings are available online at PrincetonReview.com or in this year’s publication, The Best 390 Colleges.
Also published this month are the annual Washington Monthly rankings, which consist of three equally weighted portions: social mobility, research, and community and national service. The top-ranked colleges are considered excellent across the full breadth of the measures, with the publication awarding additional acclaim to schools in the “Best Bang for the Buck” category, which stems from the rankings’ social mobility portion.
UMW comes in 96th among the nation’s Best Liberal Arts Colleges and 103rd in the Best Bang for the Buck category in the Southeast region in the Washington Monthly 2024 College Rankings.
The liberal arts colleges ranking focuses on undergraduate education with a measurement framed around schools’ contributions toward the public good or what they do for the country. UMW continues to have a strong social mobility rank, based on Pell-grant initiatives such as the Tuition Promise, service initiatives, including the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge and many others. In addition, UMW advanced in the research rank based on the number of alumni who go on to earn doctoral degrees. Each one started with an undergraduate education at the University of Mary Washington, where they learned from faculty mentors who inspired their trajectories and connected them with research projects, service learning, internships, study abroad opportunities and careers.
Applications for admission to UMW are open now for fall 2025 with more information available at https://umw.edu/apply.
