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'Princeton Review' Editor Discusses Best Schools

Aired August 20, 2002 - 11:44   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Time to pack the kids off for college. Does your student's school measure up? "The Princeton Review"'s 2003 college guide book goes on sale today. This book, which, by the way, I have right here, as you see, is a rather large document. And it ranks everything from the professors to the cafeteria food -- get that.
Robert Franeck is editorial director for "The Princeton Review," and he joins us from New York this morning.

How are you. Good to see you today.

ROBERT FRANECK, "THE PRINCETON REVIEW": Thanks, Leon. Good to see you.

HARRIS: How long does it take you to compile this -- this is, what, maybe almost 1,000 pages worth of material here.

FRANECK: Yes, it's a phone book-size publication. There's no doubt about that. We start in October of each year, and then we survey until February, and then we start to write for those months. And then we deliver the book to our publisher early part of the summer.

HARRIS: Let's deliver the goods to the folks at home. First all, let's most honorable or admirable category, best academics. Take a look at this list here. Number one, Northwestern University.

FRANECK: Yes, Northwestern University was clearly on top of this list. And again, the best 345 colleges bases all of its opinion specifically on student opinion. So they went -- to complete this book, we surveyed a little over 100,000 thousand students. So anyway, it's a wonderful resource and a great pool of students to cull this information.

HARRIS: That's very interesting because you've got two Ivy Leagues, and they're four and five -- that's no slouch. But number one, Northwestern, we've got quite a few grads here at CNN who will be glad to hear that.

(CROSSTALK)

HARRIS: Let's get to the next list: toughest to get into -- Stanford University and Princeton topping the list there.

FRANECK: This list is dependent specifically on admissions data that we get from the admissions office as well as the institution research office from campus. Specifically on the numbers, selectivity rating overall for each university.

HARRIS: All right.

Best academic bang for your buck. What criteria did you go look at to compile this list, at the top of which we see Rice University.

FRANECK: This is a great list. It is actually a brand-new list for this edition of the book. And it rates how much free money a university is giving out to its students. So that's specifically money that is not loan based. So it is given to a student for merit- based scholarships, whether that be academic based, performance based, or need based. So these schools might have large sticker prices, but also give out a great deal of money to their students.

HARRIS: Why do you think there is not much that much correlation between the list of the toughest to get into and the best academics?

FRANECK: I mean, it's interesting. Best academics, again, is based specifically on student opinion. So if kids are saying how accessible are their professors, how helpful are their professors, are they enjoying their classroom experience. What is life like outside of that experience pertaining to academics.

HARRIS: Speaking of that life outside of academics, check this one out. This is an issue that was brought up by someone else, another group here, the American Medical Association -- I'm sure you're aware, has been rather critical of the "Review" for listing party school designations, and it's calling for you and your group to stop listing the top party schools. We have got them up on the screen right now: Indiana University the number one party school -- Indiana?

FRANECK: Again, I should remind you that the school -- I mean the book -- is called the best 345 colleges. Each one of the schools listed in there is an outstanding institution, including the top 20 party school lists. I.U. Bloomington is clearly this year number one party school. We rank it on a couple of different categories -- three specific categories: alcohol and drug use on campus, fraternities and sororities on campus -- if those two categories are high and hours of study, being the third category, low, it sounds like a party to us.

HARRIS: When I first heard of the controversy, I thought that your book only had about a handful of lists and that is the reason why that one jumped out. But after seeing this -- and there's tons of lists in here -- it is kind of hard to see how that one list would get picked out. But hey...

FRANECK: There are 63 lists overall.

HARRIS: Sixty-three in all. You know what, Indiana might have been best academics if the folks had remembered it the next morning. Maybe.

(CROSSTALK)

HARRIS: Robert Franeck, appreciate that.

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