Wallow In Our Collective Misery: The Best 368 Colleges 2009 Has Arrived To Mock Our Very Souls
Welcome to judgment day, Ivy Leaguers, where we find out whether the grassy quadrangles encased by your school’s iron gates are a heaven or a hell. So gather round, because I’ve got the results hot off the press from The Princeton Review’s The Best 368 Colleges 2009. Gems from this Compendium of All Things Safety School after the jump.
The Best 368 Colleges 2009 Rankings
(now with parenthetical commentary from the actual book)
Brown:
#2 Happiest Students
#19 Lots of Race/Class Interaction
#7 Best College Radio Station
#15 Best College Theater
#18 Birkenstock-Wearing, Tree-Hugging, Clove-Smoking Vegetarians
#1 Colleges With a Conscience
(The guide says: “Athletes, preps, nerds and everyone in between come together because they love learning for the sake of learning and love Brown equally as much.”)
Columbia:
#10 Best College Library
#6 Great College Town
(The guide says: “Many students are book smart but not very worldly and can be very full of themselves,” and. “You can find conversations about everything from…Virgil’s Aeneid to the latest hipster music groups.”)
Cornell:
#5 Best College Library
#14 Best Career/Job Placement Services
#11 Best Campus Food
#7 Most Connected Campuses
(The guide says: “People just hate, hate, hate the food here.”)
Dartmouth:
#18 Students Dissatisfied With Financial Aid
#17 Colleges With A Conscience
(The guide says: “A reputation of being like summer camp,” and. “Artists, athletes, musicians and future leaders all gather together in the middle of nowhere.”)
Harvard:
#7 Students Study the Most
#1 Best College Library
#4 Students Happy With Financial Aid
#10 Dorms Like Palaces
#4 Best College Newspaper
#7 Most Politically Active Students
(The guide says: “Amazing, irresistible hell,” and everyone “works really hard. Doesn’t sleep. [Is] involved in a million extra curriculars.”)
Princeton:
#14 Best Classroom Experience
#20 Students Study the Most
#2 Best College Library
#1 Students Happy With Financial Aid
#2 School Runs Like Butter
#3 Happiest Students
#1 Most Beautiful Campus
#3 Best Quality of Life
#3 Most Politically Active Students
(The guide says: “Princeton is a lifestyle, not a school,” and, “Your average Princeton students wants to run the world, not change it.”)
University of Pennsylvania:
#20 Town-Gown Relations Are Strained
#14 Best College Newspaper
#4 Colleges with a Conscience
#3 Most Connected Campuses
(The guide says: “Partying is a much higher priority here than it is at other Ivy League schools,” and, “There’s the career-driven Wharton kid who will stab you in the back to get your interview.”)
Yale:
#12 Best Career/Job Placement Services
#19 School Runs Like Butter
#11 Happiest Students
#17 Lots of Race/Class Interaction
#1 Best College Newspaper
#1 Best College Theater
(The guide says: “Aside from the stress of midterms and finals, life at Yale is relatively carefree,” and one student notes, “A good friend of mine pledged a frat without drinking and that’s definitely not unheard of (but still not common).”)
Basically, everyone who goes to Princeton is so happy that they could almost pee their pants, Cornell’s food either sucks or doesn’t suck, the Yale Daily News is the shit, Widener Library pwns the hell out of Butler, and Brown’s just chillin’.
But wait, there’s more! I found some charming student testimonials in the back of the guide, and it looks like Columbia wins (or loses) by default. Okay, CU was the only Ivy mentioned, but Jesus are we Columbia (and Barnard) kids bitter:
“Columbia is like a fruit truck. It picks up varied exotic fruits and deposits them rotten at their destination.” –Paul L.
“The dances here [Columbia] are a riot because I love watching nerds and intellectuals dance.” –Male Senior
If someone designs T-shirts based on the fruit quote, I will SO hawk them outside John Jay during orientation.
Anyway, you guys know what to do: discuss amongst yourselves, and defend (or congratulate –if you’re a smug Princeton bastard) your school.
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Read more: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, rankings, the Princeton Review, Yale
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July 31st, 2008 at 2:43 am
Some of these rankings are spot on. Some I suspect are way off. The Brown, Columbia, Harvard and Cornell stuff seem about right. But most wired campus? Welcome to 1999. I think I’ll download some songs on Napster.
However, Dartmouth students certainly don’t have a conscience. And Princeton students certainly aren’t happy. Rich, perhaps. But usually too nerdy to be socially functioning or too stressed out of their post-Christmas final exams. And I think to say that West Philly has strained town-gown relations is an understatement. Yale should probably be on that list as well.
July 31st, 2008 at 4:53 am
This guide is soooo off. I spend most of my days napping. And my dorm is most definitely NOT like a palace.
July 31st, 2008 at 7:55 am
People care about these (the Princeton Review) rankings? A Liberal Arts College in Michigan used to tout that it was “#1 on the Princeton Review for More To Do On Campus!”. They failed to mentioned that this was pejorative, the rest of the sentence being “… in contrast to the dismal dying industrial town the college is situated in.”
Tully’s mentioning of the Wired ranking, and that Columbia/Eugene Lang/Barnard/NYU have different “Best College Town” rankings indicate this too.
When’s USNews coming out?
July 31st, 2008 at 9:21 am
I pledged a fraternity. This one time, we studied so hard that I puked.
July 31st, 2008 at 9:59 am
What ruins the lists credibility are the non-Ivy mistakes. It’s a joke that Arizona State is 17 on the ‘party school’ list and Madison isn’t even on it. And confining to 368 school makes the ‘most religious’ list seem so bare. Poor Bob Jones
July 31st, 2008 at 10:02 am
apparently Cornell can’t translate its current “hottest ivy” status into a decent hot meal!
July 31st, 2008 at 10:37 am
“A reputation of being like summer camp” - Maybe sophomore summer. Ever been to Hanover in the winter? Note the lack of sophomores and juniors.
July 31st, 2008 at 12:01 pm
@whysoserious
I’m going to go way out on a limb, here, and guess that the cited quote was the Guide’s lame attempt at sarcastic humor, given CU’s food ranking and the stereotype of CU student weight gain (in order to avoid a flamewar, I am not going to differentiate between sexes here).
Also, looking at the “most beautifulest campus EVER” list, while PR correctly put P’ton at the top of the list, I’d think a few of the other Ivies would have a good shot at making the top 20. Holy Cross? Sewanee? Really?
And “Great College Towns”…what?? Is it just me, or is this primarily a list of large cities that are decidely not towns? And decidely less collegiate than any actually great college town?
Sigh.
July 31st, 2008 at 4:26 pm
So basically Dartmouth isn’t good at anything? Oh well, at least we make the most money upon graduating.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121746658635199271.html?mod=hps_us_inside_today
July 31st, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Everyone here should read the section on his or her own school if given the chance. They pick the most hilarious, stereotypical, and off-base quotes possible. Obviously it sells, but for it’s pure entertainment.
July 31st, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Not that I don’t love being great at journalism and theater, most of these rankings are complete bullshit, if not totally arbitrary. Happiness rankings? Come on. Who even answers these surveys?
July 31st, 2008 at 6:48 pm
it says in the Academics section for Columbia that 0% of classes are taught by TAs. That is completely wrong.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:21 am
These rankings are odd.
I’ve never met students more happy to be where they are than at Wisconsin.
College towns means Austin, Happy Valley, Bloomington, Madison, not NYC, D.C., etc.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:14 pm
I like how Barnard gets #4 for best college town and Columbia gets #6…
Grass is a whole lot greener on the other side of Broadway.
August 6th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Princeton Review, much like the University that shares its name, is worthless.
August 14th, 2008 at 3:51 am
In Columbia’s defense (and other NYC schools for that matter), I’m guessing “College Town” refers to the neighborhood itself – Morningside Heights, in Columbia’s case – and not to the city as a whole. Although Morningside Heights sucks, so I don’t know what these Princeton Reviewers were smoking.
I’m also surprised Columbia didn’t make the “Town-Gown Relations Are Strained” list. Have these people been living under a rock?
August 14th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Columbia is the best college in the world. If one takes full advantage they will receive a “swim or sink” Ivy League education from Columbia and a worldly education/experience from New York which is the greatest city in the world.
We would so beat up any other Ivy! MIT’s overrated ass is not safe either!