- Rating Scores Based on Environmental Practices, Policies and Course

                                 Offerings

   - 'Green Honor Roll' Salutes 11 Colleges Receiving Green Ratings of 99

                              (Highest Score)



    NEW YORK, July 28 /EMWNews/ -- The Princeton Review --

known for its test-prep courses, books and website resources helping

students choose and get in to colleges -- today debuts its new "Green

Rating" of colleges -- a measure of how environmentally friendly,

responsible, and committed the institutions are. The Green Rating is a

numerical score on a scale of 60 to 99 that The Princeton Review tallied

for 534 colleges and universities based on data it collected from the

schools in the 2007-08 academic year concerning their environmentally

related policies, practices, and academic offerings.



    The Green Rating scores appear in the website profiles of the 534

schools that will be posted on The Princeton Review's site

(http://www.PrincetonReview.com) today. They will also be in the print

profiles of those schools in the 2009 editions of three Princeton Review

books: "The Best 368 Colleges" (on sale tomorrow), "The Best Northeastern

Colleges" (on sale August 5) and "The Complete Book of Colleges" (on sale

August 5) all published by Random House.



    The Princeton Review developed the Green Rating in consultation with

ecoAmerica (http://www.ecoamerica.org), a non-profit environmental

marketing agency. The criteria for the rating (which ecoAmerica helped

formulate along with the rating's data collection survey and methodology)

cover three broad areas: 1/ the school's overall institutional commitment

to environmental responsibility, 2/ whether the school's students have a

campus quality of life that is healthy and sustainable, and 3/ how well the

school is preparing its students for employment and citizenship in a world

defined by environmental challenges. The institutional survey for the

rating included questions on everything from energy use, recycling, food,

buildings, and transportation to academic offerings (availability of

environmental studies degrees and courses) and action plans and goals

concerning greenhouse gas emission reductions.



    Named to The Princeton Review's "2009 Green Rating Honor Roll" -- a

list saluting 11 colleges that each received Green Rating scores of 99 (the

highest score) are six public and five private institutions:






    (in alphabetical order)



    Arizona State University at the Tempe campus

    Bates College (Lewiston, ME)

    Binghamton University (State Univ. of New York at Binghamton)

    College of the Atlantic (Bar Harbor, ME)

    Emory University (Atlanta, GA)

    Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, GA)

    Harvard University (Cambridge, MA)

    University of New Hampshire (Durham, NH)

    University of Oregon (Eugene, OR)

    University of Washington (Seattle, WA)

    Yale University (New Haven, CT)



    Said Robert Franek, Vice President / Publisher at The Princeton Review,

"The 'green' movement on college campuses is far more than an Earth Day

recycling project or a dining hall menu of organic food. The commitment

that many colleges and their student bodies have made to environmental

issues -- indeed, to the environment -- in their practices, use of

resources and academic and research programs is truly compelling. We are

pleased to play a role in helping students identify, get into, and study at

these schools. It is the students of today who will face and hopefully find

solutions for the enormous environmental challenges confronting our

planet's future."



    Franek noted the rising interest among students in attending schools

that practice, teach and support environmentally responsible choices. Among

10,300 college applicants and parents of applicants surveyed by The

Princeton Review this year for its annual "College Hopes & Worries Survey,"

63% of respondents overall said they would value having information about a

college's commitment to the environment. Among that cohort, 23% overall

said such information would "strongly" or "very much" impact their/their

child's decision to apply to or attend the school, with a higher percentage

of students (24%) than parents (18%) expressing this opinion.



    Executive Director of ecoAmerica, Lee Bodner, noted "Forward-looking

colleges and universities see the alignment between policies that are both

good for the environment and good for students. The ratings show that there

are a huge number of schools of every type and in every part of the country

that are going the extra mile to offer a great quality of life and give

students a leg up in the 21st century green economy."



    The Princeton Review has dedicated a resource area on its website for

students and others interested in learning more about the rating and the

benefits of attending a green college. Developed by the staff of

ecoAmerica, the area includes information on colleges with exemplary

environmental programs and questions applicants should ask when visiting

schools. It also has links to organizations that serve and promote higher

education and campus sustainability programs and to news and magazine

articles on these topics.



    In reporting its Green Rating, The Princeton Review thanked the members

of its "Green Rating Advisory Board" that contributed their suggestions in

the planning phase of this project. The six-member board included: Lee

Bodner, Executive Director, ecoAmerica, Anthony D. Cortese, President,

Second Nature, Julian Dautremont-Smith, Associate Director, Association for

the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, Jared Duval, Senior

Fellow, ecoAmerica (and former National Director of the Sierra Student

Coalition), Rafael Reyes, Program Director, ecoAmerica, and Leith Sharp,

Director, Harvard Green Campus Initiative. The board members were chosen by

ecoAmerica, and their participation in this project was solely on an

individual basis, not as representatives of their organizations.

    About The Princeton Review college ratings and college rankings:



    The Princeton Review college ratings are numerical scores on a scale of

60 to 99 that it reports in some of the college profiles on its website and

some of its college guides. The ratings are based primarily on

institutional data that The Princeton Review collects from the colleges. In

addition to the new Green Rating, other rating categories include:

Admissions Selectivity, Financial Aid, Quality of Life, and Fire Safety (a

rating The Princeton Review developed in 2004 in partnership with the

Center for Campus Fire Safety (http://www.campusfire.org)). Schools from

which The Princeton Review did not receive (by its deadline) all the data

it requested that factors into the rating tally for a category receive a

score of 60* (sixty with an asterisk) in that category. The Princeton

Review college rankings are lists of schools (in rank order 1 to 20) that

it reports in its annual "Best Colleges" guidebook and on its website. The

ranking lists report the top 20 schools (of those in the book) in 62

categories. The current ranking lists are based entirely on The Princeton

Review's surveys of 120,000 students attending the 368 schools in the book

who rated their own institutions on dozens of topics, and reported on their

campus experiences at them.



    About The Princeton Review:



    The Princeton Review (Nasdaq: REVU) offers private tutoring and

classroom and online test preparation to help students improve their scores

in college and graduate school admissions tests. The Company's free

website, http://www.PrincetonReview.com, helps over half of

university-bound student's research, apply to, prepare for, and learn how

to pay for their higher education. The Company also authors more than 200

print and software titles on test preparation, college and graduate school

selection and admissions, and related topics. The Princeton Review is not

affiliated with Princeton University and it is not a magazine.



    About ecoAmerica:



    ecoAmerica is an environmental nonprofit that uses consumer research,

partnerships, and engagement marketing to shift the personal and civic

choices of mainstream Americans. By starting with people instead of issues,

ecoAmerica creates powerful initiatives demonstrating the alignment between

human interest and a healthy planet. ecoAmerica partnered with The

Princeton Review to develop the initial concept of the Green Rating and

provided strategic planning, and partnership building expertise for its

development. The innovative programs ecoAmerica has launched include the

American Environmental Values Survey, The American College and University

Presidents Climate Commitment, and GreenCareers by MonsterTRAK.



    NOTE TO EDITORS:



    Available for interviews in New York, Robert Franek, VP / Publisher,

The Princeton Review, or one of the Senior Editors on this project can

discuss: the Green Rating criteria, the green movement on college campuses,

examples of colleges with exceptional environmental programs, and advice

for students interested in attending environmentally friendly colleges.