Colleges make lots of promises to prospective students. But Centre
College, a liberal arts college with 1,070 students in Danville, Kentucky
actually gives you a guarantee. All students who meet the college’s
academic expectations are guaranteed an internship, study abroad, and
graduation in four consecutive years.
will provide up to a year of additional study tuition-free.
Centre’s confidence doesn’t stop with their guarantee.
A lot of colleges claim to have nice dorms. Centre puts pictures of them
on the web so you can check them out for yourself.
A lot of colleges claim they can help you get jobs someday. Centre
assigns you your own career counselor who helps you develop a step-by-step
career plan. A lot of colleges claim to have strong alumni
support. Centre has led the nation in the percentage of alumni who make
contributions to their college (75.1 percent!) for most of the last two
decades.
Centre’s students enjoy a rigorous, liberal arts education
that is integrated with real-world experience through internships at places
like the Center for Disease Control, 6th District Court of Appeals, State Farm
Insurance, Toyota and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Its
strongest programs are English, history, biology and government along with a
3-2 liberal arts and engineering program where students complete their studies
at Vanderbilt or Columbia University.
addition to a vibrant Greek system and plenty of on-campus organizations, there
are some pretty great traditions for Centre students. As seniors, the
female students serenade the college president…in their bath towels.
Centre faculty and staff annually brave the snow and cold weather to sing
Christmas carols to Centre students in the middle of final exams. And of
course, there is the time-honored tradition of “Running the Flame” in which
students run from the fraternity houses, around a sculpture and back.
Sound boring? Well, they make the run without wearing any clothes.
a car. Every auto salesman claims their model has “the largest trunk in
its class,” and every college claims to offer a dedicated faculty with small
class size. We like Centre’s willingness to guarantee their students will
succeed as long as they do their part while in college.
prefer Caltech, Drexel or Babson. If you’re at the other extreme and you
want unlimited academic freedom to pursue your intellectual interests, you
might prefer Reed or St. John’s (two of our former College Spotlights).
But if you’re somewhere in the middle, and you’re looking for a school that
will challenge you intellectually but also give you opportunities to build your
professional resume through an extensive internship program, we recommend you
check out Centre College at www.centre.edu.