Westminster, Grove City colleges receive national commendation

U.S. News & amp; World Report has ranked Grove City College the No. 1 "best value" in its category for the magazine's 2005 guide.
The magazine also ranked Westminster College in Lawrence County as third among liberal arts colleges and sixth in the country in the graduation rate performance.
The magazine said Westminster College's 77 percent graduation rate was 17 percent higher than predicted.
Grove City also was ranked No. 5 overall in the magazine's "America's Best Colleges" among northern comprehensive colleges, taking the top spot in four areas -- average freshman retention rate at 90 percent, average SAT in the 25th-75th percentile, freshman in the top 25 percent of their high school class and acceptance rate at 41 percent.
In addition, The Princeton Review Co. included Grove City and Westminster in its 2005 guide, "The Best 357 Colleges."
Every year, The Princeton Review, based in New York City, surveys more than 100,000 students whose opinions make up the annual college guidebook.
Westminster also was honored by Yahoo! Internet Life as "one of America's most-wired colleges" and by the Templeton Guide as a "character-building college."
Park efforts
A group of volunteers will be building a new playground at the Mahaney Recreation Area at Shenango River Lake in Mercer County on Sept. 18.
It's the 11th annual National Public Lands Day, and the volunteers will be assisting the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees the lake, in building a playground as well as clearing hiking trails and painting picnic shelters on that day.