aerial view of the campus of evergreen state college in olympia washington

When I was trying to decide on which college to attend about a decade and a half ago, I found the process rather overwhelming. I didn’t have any older siblings who had been there, and my parents apparently always assumed I’d go to one of the state schools they attended. It sounds supremely naive now, but I had no idea that different schools had different personalities, philosophies or cultures. I knew some were better at some academic disciplines and sports than others, but I didn’t know how to figure out which school would really be right for me.

I also certainly didn’t give any thought to which college might be the greenest, or which might have the most sustainable cafeteria. Heck, I didn’t even know that different dorms tended to have prevailing cultures year after year, or that you don’t need to get the “recommended” textbooks for a class, or sometimes even the “required ones”!

See our list of the 10 greenest colleges.

I bring this up because my interest was piqued today when I received an email about a list of top environmental studies programs from the 2011 Fiske Guide to Colleges. Although former New York Times Education Editor Edward Fiske has been publishing versions of his guides for 25 years, I wasn’t aware of them. According to the author, his books are specifically aimed at explaining the real characters of schools to parents and prospective students, from details on the student body, to social life, and financial aid, as well as academics. (I can say from experience that it’s important to not overlook the complete picture of student life.)

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