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GAMBIER, Ohio (August 4, 2006) A special section on higher education in the July 30 New York Times listed Kenyon as one of twenty "off the beaten path" colleges. Times writer Randall C. Archibold suggests that students look beyond the 25 or so usual suspects that often end up on high school seniors' lists."If you decide that there's only one place to go to college and it's Harvard, you are setting yourself up for rejection," says Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director for the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.
With more than 2,500 four-year colleges and universities in the United States, the Times urges students to pay less attention to prestige and more to "fit"--the marriage of interests and comfort level with factors like size, access to professors, instruction philosophy.
David W. Breneman, dean of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia and an expert on the economics of private colleges, praises Kenyon's excellent tradition in the humanities, creative writing, and theater. "It's not an accident that Paul Newman is an alum," he says. Nor E.L. Doctorow.
The Times goes on to say that the College puts a premium on good writing and produces the Kenyon Review.