Over the years, the University of Maine at Farmington has earned a national reputation for excellence, quietly gaining stature as one of the finest state-supported universities in the entire northeastern United States.
One of "America's Best Colleges"
U.S.News & World Report
It’s flattering to be named one of "America’s Best Colleges" 11 consecutive years (1998-2008) but at Farmington, we take the annual college ratings with a grain of salt.
While it's nice to be recognized each year, we don’t view the rankings as the definitive authority on how to select a college. We believe the annual college guide can be a useful tool in helping you pare down your list of potential schools. It can help you learn a lot about a college: its graduation rate, student-to-faculty ratio, freshman retention rate, average class size, and more.
The U.S.News guidebook can also help you discover less well-known schools, colleges you may not have known were out there, but which may be a perfect fit for you.
One of 20 Schools That Foster Student Success
National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE)
Perhaps more significantly, the University of Maine at Farmington is also one of just 20 colleges and universities across the nation featured in Student Success in College: Creating Conditions That Matter. The book identifies schools that serve as models of educational effectiveness.
Student Success in College uses data collected by the National Survey of Student Engagement, which polls college students — asking them what's required of them: how many papers they write, how often and how well they interact with professors, how often they participate in classroom discussions, and more.
The book's authors interviewed students, faculty and staff and observed their behavior on campus. Student Success in College highlights 20 high-performing institutions that create a more supportive campus culture, where students are engaged, satisfied with their post-secondary experience, and are successful. UMF is distinguished as a college that is alive with a steady stream of innovative ideas and initiatives.
Schools featured include the University of Maine at Farmington, the University of Michigan, the University of Kansas, George Mason University, Gonzaga University, among others. Wheaton College in Massachusetts is the only other New England college profiled in the book.
What it said about us:-"[UMF has] an unshakable focus on student learning"
- "[Its] students are equal partners and take their responsibilities seriously"
- "The campus is alive with a steady stream of innovative ideas and initiatives"
- "UMF's evolution into a student success-oriented campus ... is the product of a campus culture where 'people and their success' really do matter"
- "[UMF is] an engaged community of learners that capitalizes on its size and location, and gets the most out of its ... resources and talented students, faculty, and staff."