Princeton Review's Best 371 Colleges

The Princeton Review (TPR), one of the top test preparation institutes in the US has released its much awaited “Best 371 Colleges” book, containing rankings of top US universities based on a wide range of factors.
According to TPR’s website, the rankings have been prepared based on a survey of “over 122,000 students and .. tons of information .. including 62 rankings lists”. All this to help you, the student, find “the best college”. The rankings have been prepared based on various major factors like academics, demographics, town life, school type, politics, quality of life, extracurriculars, and social scene. Then there are various sub-factors under each. Some interesting facts:
1. Under school-type, Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) – University Park has been ranked the #1 party school. Universities of Florida and Mississippi follow in 2nd and 3rd place respectively. On the other end of the spectrum, Brigham Young University in Utah is the most “Stone-Cold Sober School”.
2. Parties have been covered under Social Scene category also, and there are various schools listed under “Lots of Beer”, “Lots of Hard Liquor”, and even “Got Milk?” categories. No prizes for guessing the top schools under beer and milk categories. See item 1 above.
3. Thomas Aquinas College in the West and Bennington College in the East are reported to have the most and least religious student population respectively.
4. Not surprisingly, two most politically active schools are inside the beltway (Washington DC).
There is a lot more out there, so if you are looking for the “best college”, head out to the princeton review site, or buy the book.
Princeton Review, the test prep institute is different from Princeton University in New Jersey, which is one of the top notch Universities in the country, grouped under the “Ivy League”.