EVERGREEN STATE COLLEGE Olympia, Wash.

Undergraduates: 4,191

Acceptance rate: 97 percent

With its hippie vibe, Evergreen is one of the country’s more unusual public colleges. Since its founding in 1971 — think of the time — Evergreen has sought to throw out the rules, including the class schedule. Students don’t quite make it up as they go along, but that’s the idea. A seminar here, a workshop there, a field trip, a collaborative lab. “The college has retained its innovative, iconoclastic spirit, remaining true to its founding principles, holding fast to a belief that faculty and students are both learners,” says George D. Kuh, director of the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University Bloomington and of the National Survey of Student Engagement. Evergreen was one of 20 colleges he and his co-authors featured in a 2005 book, “Student Success in College: Creating Conditions That Matter.”

WHITMAN COLLEGE Walla Walla, Wash.

Undergraduates: 1,512

Acceptance rate: 47 percent

Here is a college for the outdoors type — mountains and streams are readily accessible. The city is small enough that it is not unusual to bump into a professor at the coffee shop, and Whitman promises that they won’t mind chatting outside of class time (or in class, with an average of just 15 students). “If you are in the Northwest, people would almost always tell you it is a premiere institution,” says Mr. Longanecker. Every semester, the college finances trips to campus for 100 minority and low-income high school students, some of whom are offered full-ride scholarships.

Cowboy Country

COLORADO COLLEGE Colorado Springs

Undergraduates: 1,977

Acceptance rate: 38 percent

Students get through Colorado College a course at a time — literally. One course is taken for three and a half weeks, followed by a four-day break, and then it’s on to the next. But the anthropology classroom may well be nearby Anasazi ruins, the geology classroom the Grand Canyon. The college takes advantage of its stunning Rocky Mountain setting, with day and weeklong field trips. To build community, students, most of whom come from outside Colorado, are required to live on campus for the first three years. Perhaps inspired by the college president, Richard F. Celeste, a former Peace Corps director, 20 alumni are currently serving in the corps. Famous graduates include the vice president’s wife, Lynne Cheney, and their daughters, Elizabeth and Mary.

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA Norman

Undergraduates: 21,270

Acceptance rate: 82 percent

Oklahoma’s rising academic profile is reflected in statistics: No. 1 per capita among public universities in the number of National Merit Scholars enrolled (currently 700) and in the top five in the graduation of Rhodes Scholars. This is a sprawling university, with commensurate academic resources and heterogeneity: about a quarter of undergraduates are minorities (8 percent American Indian) and on Pell grants. Deep in the heartland, Oklahoma has its own natural history museum, a renowned collection of Impressionist paintings, and 20 colleges offering 153 undergraduate majors. We hear the football team is not so bad, either.

Northern Plains

MACALESTER COLLEGE St. Paul

Undergraduates: 1,867

Acceptance rate: 39 percent

Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, is an alumnus. That should not be surprising. Twelve percent of enrollment — a lot for a campus of this size — are international students representing 78 countries. Mr. Annan, a native of Ghana who graduated in 1961, returned to the campus this spring to dedicate its Institute for Global Citizenship, devoted to addressing world problems. In keeping with its pan-cultural emphasis, the college offers an array of study-abroad programs and field trips within the United States. As for its own location, it has pros (near world-class museums as well as muskie fishing) and cons (fearfully frigid winters).

CARLETON COLLEGE Northfield, Minn.

Undergraduates: 1,936

Acceptance rate: 29 percent

Carleton’s Frisbee prowess may be matched only by the high number of students who go on to earn doctorates, particularly in math and science. When the winter snow finally recedes, students break out the flying discs in serious club competitions. Who said Carletonians were nerdy and cerebral? “Carleton is a place where able and intelligent students with a quirky sense of humor would go,” says Mr. Longanecker of the Western Interstate Commission. Carleton’s scholarship is well documented. It ranks behind only Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore and Wellesley as best liberal arts college in the country, according to U.S. News & World Report, and is equally selective.