Whitman College

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• Top 6 Colleges in Washington

  Currently #4 · score 0

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• University of Washington

  The University of Washington, founded in 1861, is one of the top public research universities in the country, and its medical school has ranked among the top handful nationally for primary care training for decades, reflecting the university's deliberate focus on training physicians for the vast rural areas of the Pacific Northwest it serves. UW's computer science and engineering programs have built especially strong reputations, benefiting directly from the university's proximity to Seattle's concentration of major technology employers, several of which — including Microsoft — were co-founded or staffed early on by UW graduates and now maintain deep recruiting and research partnerships with the school. The university's research funding, regularly ranking among the top handful of American universities for total federal research dollars received, funds significant work at UW Medicine and the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science, the latter named for the Microsoft co-founder whose foundation has been one of the university's largest donors. UW's Seattle campus, centered on the Drumheller Fountain with a clear view of Mount Rainier on clear days, combined with the university's research scale and relatively affordable in-state public tuition, has made it the preferred choice for Washington State students seeking a major research university experience without leaving the state.

• Washington State University

  Washington State University, founded in 1890 as the state's land-grant institution, has built its strongest academic reputation around agriculture, veterinary medicine, and viticulture — a natural fit given the university's location in the Palouse, one of the most productive wheat-growing regions in the country. WSU's wine science program has grown alongside Washington State's emergence as the country's second-largest wine-producing state, and the university's Viticulture and Enology program gives students direct access to research vineyards used to study the specific growing conditions of the Columbia Valley and other major Washington wine regions. The university's College of Veterinary Medicine is one of the oldest and most respected west of the Mississippi, and WSU's remote Pullman, Washington location, far from any major metropolitan area, has fostered a self-contained agricultural-research-university culture built around the land-grant mission the school was founded to serve. WSU's Cougars athletic programs and its rivalry with the University of Washington, contested annually in the Apple Cup football game, give the university a statewide athletic identity that, combined with its agricultural research strength, has made it Washington's clear second major public university behind UW.

• Gonzaga University

  Gonzaga University, founded in 1887 by Jesuit missionaries, built its national reputation largely on the back of its men's basketball program, which has reached the NCAA tournament nearly every year since the late 1990s and played in the 2017 and 2021 national championship games, turning a small Spokane Jesuit college into a nationally recognized brand. The university's law school and its business school have each built solid regional reputations in the Pacific Northwest, and Gonzaga's Jesuit educational mission, emphasizing service and ethical leadership alongside academic rigor, shapes the university's curriculum and campus culture much as it does at other Jesuit institutions nationally. Gonzaga's rise in basketball prominence has directly driven a corresponding rise in undergraduate applications and academic selectivity, a pattern higher-education researchers frequently cite as an example of athletic success meaningfully reshaping a university's broader institutional profile and applicant pool. The university's Spokane campus and its relatively small undergraduate enrollment, around 5,000 students, give Gonzaga a close-knit community feel that's remained consistent even as the school's basketball-driven national name recognition has grown dramatically over the past two decades.

• Seattle University

  Seattle University, founded in 1891 by Jesuit missionaries, is the Pacific Northwest's largest Jesuit university, and its downtown Seattle campus gives students direct access to the city's legal, business, and technology industries in a way few other regional private universities can match. The university's School of Law and its Albers School of Business have each built strong regional reputations, and Seattle University's nursing program benefits from close clinical partnerships with the city's major hospital systems, reflecting the school's broader institutional emphasis on professional programs tied directly to the surrounding urban economy. Seattle University's Jesuit mission emphasizes social justice and community engagement alongside academics, and the university's urban campus and required service-learning components reflect that mission in ways distinct from more rural or suburban Jesuit institutions elsewhere in the country. The university's combination of a genuinely urban campus embedded in downtown Seattle, a religiously grounded educational mission, and increasingly strong professional programs has made it a consistent draw for students who want a private Jesuit education without leaving one of the Pacific Northwest's largest cities.

• Western Washington University

  Western Washington University, founded in 1893 as a teacher-training college, has grown into one of the most selective and well-regarded regional public universities on the West Coast, consistently ranking among the top public master's-level universities in national surveys of undergraduate teaching quality. The university's Huxley College of the Environment is one of the oldest standalone environmental studies colleges in the country, reflecting Western's early and sustained institutional commitment to environmental science at a time when few universities offered dedicated degree programs in the field. WWU's Bellingham campus, set on a wooded hillside overlooking Bellingham Bay with views of the San Juan Islands, is frequently cited among the most scenic public university campuses on the West Coast, and the school's outdoor recreation-oriented student culture reflects its Pacific Northwest coastal setting. The university's deliberate focus on undergraduate teaching over graduate research, unusual for a public university of its size, has made Western a consistent top choice for Washington State students seeking a smaller-scale, teaching-focused public university experience as an alternative to UW's larger research-university scale.