<p>My procedure for compiling this consensus list of noteworthy colleges is the same convenience procedure I used years before in making a college list for my personal website: I obtain some current college guidebooks, look at what colleges are listed in each book, and then record for each college which books list it. I make no claim that the editors of any of the guidebooks have come up with a foolproof way of deciding which colleges to include and which to exclude from their lists. There are exhaustive college guidebooks, notably the College Board College</a> Handbook, which attempt to list every college in the United States, but the books I consulted all select a subset of colleges to discuss in detail in a convenient format. If you think a particular college you know about should be listed, please contact the guidebook editors, magazine editors, or nonprofit organization committees who compiled the lists I consulted. Most lists of colleges expand over time, and I'm sure that if you write a clearly written, carefully evidenced letter that that will persuade the compilers of each list to take a second look at the college you advocate for. I took care to consult guidebooks that have gone through multiple editions, having already received push-back from readers who are fans of one or another college. Reasons that a particular college is included in a particular guidebook are perhaps debatable, but I think the consensus of the guidebooks selects out a list of colleges that are indisputably colleges with a national, and possibly worldwide, reputation. I thought it might be helpful to College Confidential participants looking to round out their application lists to post my consensus list here. My sources are mentioned below: </p>
<p>INCLUSION SOURCES </p>
<p>1) The Princeton Review: The Best 366 Colleges: 2008 Edition by Robert Franek et al. (New York, NY: Princeton Review Inc., © 2007)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Best-Colleges-College-Admissions-Guides/dp/0375766219/%5B/url%5D">http://www.amazon.com/Best-Colleges-College-Admissions-Guides/dp/0375766219/</a> </p>
<p>You can see this list on the Web: </p>
<p><a href="http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/rankings/rankingsBest.asp%5B/url%5D">http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/rankings/rankingsBest.asp</a> </p>
<p>This list has expanded considerably since 286 colleges were included in the second edition more than a decade ago. The editors say, "The initial list was built through consultation with a variety of expert sources, including 50 independent educational consultants from across the nation. From that point, new institutions have been added annually; a few have been dropped. A careful review of the guide will reveal a wide representation of colleges, with regard to geography and enrollment size."</p>
<p>2) Peterson's 440 Colleges for Top Students: 2007 by Peterson's (Lawrenceville, N.J.: Thomson Peterson's, © 2006, 26th ed.)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/440-Colleges-Top-Students-2007/dp/0768921511/%5B/url%5D">http://www.amazon.com/440-Colleges-Top-Students-2007/dp/0768921511/</a> </p>
<p>(There is a newer edition out in bookstores now). This is the most inclusive list of colleges I consulted, and added many unique entries to my initial working list, but it has some bizarre omissions. The editors say, "We make only one assumption in this guide. This is that the most influential factor in determining your experience on campus is the other students you will find there. In selecting colleges for inclusion in this book, we measure the competitiveness of the admission environment at colleges."</p>
<p>3) Fiske Guide to Colleges: 2008 by Edward B. Fiske (Napierville, IL: Sourcesbooks, 2007, twenty-fourth ed.)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fiske-Guide-Colleges-2008/dp/1402208367/%5B/url%5D">http://www.amazon.com/Fiske-Guide-Colleges-2008/dp/1402208367/</a> </p>
<p>The former journalist who compiles this guidebook says, "The selection was done with several broad principles in mind, beginning with academic quality. Depending on how you define the term, there are about 175 'selective' colleges and universities in the nation, and by and large these constitute the best institutions academically. . . . In addition, an effort was made to achieve geographic diversity and a balance of public and private schools."</p>
<p>4) The Insider's Guide to the Colleges 34th Edition: 2008 compiled and edited by the staff of the Yale Daily News (New York: St. Martins Griffin, 2007)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Insiders-Guide-Colleges-2008-34th/dp/0312366892/%5B/url%5D">http://www.amazon.com/Insiders-Guide-Colleges-2008-34th/dp/0312366892/</a> </p>
<p>This guidebook has improved the most since the last time I compiled a college list for my personal website several years ago, and is a welcome addition to the literature. The editors say, "From more than 2,900 four-year institutions nationwide, we cover only 323 colleges. We examine a number of criteria in deciding which colleges to select, but our first priority is always the quality of the academics offered by the institution. Another key factor in our decisions is the desire to offer a diversity of options."</p>
<p>5) How to Get Into College 2008 by Kaplan and Newsweek © 2007</p>
<p>A magazine special edition I found at a local bookstore, edited by a test-prep publisher and magazine publisher, which describe the listed colleges as the "most interesting" colleges in America, while noting that many good schools are not included. This publication added several unique entries to my initial working list. </p>
<p>6) The national chapter list of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the national college honorary society founded in 1776. </p>
<p><a href="http://staging.pbk.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Chapter_Directory&Template=/custom/chapterdir.cfm%5B/url%5D">http://staging.pbk.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Chapter_Directory&Template=/custom/chapterdir.cfm</a> </p>
<p>This list has some interesting omissions, for example the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and includes some colleges not listed in any other source. </p>
<p>7) The Washington Monthly college rankings 2007 </p>
<p><a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0709.rankings.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0709.rankings.html</a> </p>
<p>The Washington Monthly rankings rank all Carnegie Foundation for Teaching national universities or national liberal arts colleges in two separate ranked lists, based on rather interesting value-added criteria. I included universities that scored at least 35 and colleges that scored at least 40 on my initial working list, thereby adding several unique entries. </p>
<p>Even though I included a variety of sources to compile my initial working list of colleges, which numbers 637 different colleges in three countries (the United States, Canada, and Britain), some colleges are plainly underrepresented in some of the sources. Some of the sources were very good about including specialty art schools, schools of music, national service academies, or polytechnic colleges, but others excluded those entirely. One very new college, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, will surely be included in more sources in later editions after it has had time to build up its already good reputation. Because not all of my inclusion sources were as inclusive as the most inclusive, I used a principle of five mentions out of a possible seven to make the initial cut for inclusion in the list I posted to open this thread. </p>
<p>SELECTIVITY SOURCES </p>
<p>8) Rugg's Recommendations on the Colleges Twenty-Fourth Edition by Frederick E. Rugg (Fallbrook, CA: Rugg's Recommendations, 2007). </p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ruggs-Recommendations-Colleges-24th-Frederick/dp/1883062675/%5B/url%5D">http://www.amazon.com/Ruggs-Recommendations-Colleges-24th-Frederick/dp/1883062675/</a> </p>
<p>This is the only one of my sources published west of the Rocky Mountains and one of only two not published in the northeast. Rugg's guidebook includes information about 1075 different colleges. He gets much of his information about colleges from a network of high school counselors around the country. For each major subject featured in his guidebook, he lists colleges that are "most selective" for students desiring that major, and I noted any college that was listed twice or more among the top ten major subjects in the United States (with history, mathematics, and economics added for good measure) as a "selective" college by Rugg's criteria. If a college listed in Rugg's book in that manner was also named by at least five of the sources 1) through 7), I included the college on my consensus list. Other colleges named by this source and four other sources are noted in a supplemental list I kept separately as I compiled my main consensus list. </p>
<p>9) Choosing the Right College: 2008-2009: The Whole Truth about America's Top Schools by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, © 2007. 6th ed.)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Choosing-Right-College-2008-2009-Americas/dp/1933859237/%5B/url%5D">http://www.amazon.com/Choosing-Right-College-2008-2009-Americas/dp/1933859237/</a> </p>
<p>This book is the second-most-selective of the lists I consulted, but includes some unique entries matching the point of view of the editors. If a college listed in this book was also named by at least five of the sources 1) through 7), I included the college on my list. Other colleges named by this source and four others are noted in a supplemental list I kept separately as I compiled my main consensus list. </p>
<p>10) Barron's Guide to the Most Competitive Colleges Fifth Edition by the College Division staff of Barron's Educational Series, Inc. (Hauppauge, NY: Barron's Educational Series, 2007, 5th ed.)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Most-Competitive-Colleges-Barrons/dp/0764137603/%5B/url%5D">http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Most-Competitive-Colleges-Barrons/dp/0764137603/</a></p>
<p>This list is the shortest and the most restrictive, based on admission criteria. Only one college listed in this source (the Webb Institute) was not listed by at least five colleges in the sources from 1) through 7) and in one or the other of sources 8) and 9). </p>
<p>Colleges named all seven possible times in the inclusion sources 1) through 7) and in two of the three selectivity sources 8) through 10) are listed with a double asterisk (**).</p>