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CNN Live Today
Top of the Class
Aired August 20, 2003 - 11:44 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Where does a smart student find an academically challenging campus without compromising his pocket protector? You know that's what you're thinking about this morning.
Well, if you are, just check out the new college rankings. They are out this week. Survey takers got the opinions of more than 100,000 college kids on some 351 different campuses. Yale University is the top of the class academically this year in the rankings by "The Princeton Review."
Rob Franek is the survey director and author of "The Best 351 Colleges."
He joins us in New York this morning. Good to see you. How are you?
ROB FRANEK, SURVEY DIR. & AUTHOR, "THE BEST 351 COLLEGES": Pretty good. Thanks for having me.
HARRIS: Hey, any big surprises before we get started looking at these lists?
FRANEK: I think one of the biggest surprises is over the last couple of years, we've noticed a lot of schools in urban areas have become very popular. So No. 1 on our great college town list is NYU.
HARRIS: Really? OK, you know what, I can actually see that, lots to do there. Lots of list to get through, too. And let's see if we can tackle four or five of these this morning, if we can get through them this morning.
Starting off with best academics. Let's take a look at the colleges that you list here as having the best academics.
FRANEK: Yes, best academic experience rates kids -- we talk to students and try to gauge how much they're working inside the classroom and how much they are gaining from their experience outside the classroom. So we ask them about professors, accessibility of those professors, both inside and outside the classroom.
HARRIS: Yes, and no really surprise here, at least not to me -- you see No. 1 coming in there at the top, Yale, then Princeton, then Duke University, then Amherst College and then MIT.
Next, since you mentioned professors, let's take a look at next list, the schools that your survey found out were the ones that students thought had the best professors. Let's look at this list here, starting with Middlebury College, Carlton College, Davidson College, Harvey Mudd College, and Seattle University. I'm guessing that a lot of folks have not heard of all these schools.
FRANEK: Yes, and I'm so glad that you brought out (UNINTELLIGIBLE) list, because since the book is called the best 351 colleges, we're not just serving the top 40 schools based on academics across the country. Students can come on to our Web site, princetonreview, com, and fill in as many surveys as they can for that one student.
But this is a really useful list, because it's something that you're maybe will not hear about on a college viewbook or you're not going to hear about on a college tour. We try to get in and ask these tough questions, and then report it back to the public.
HARRIS: What kind of criteria, though, would students use to determine who has the best professors?
FRANEK: We asked them accessibility questions, how accessible a professor is both inside and outside of the classroom, how engaging they are. So academics, since it's a huge part of quality of life for a college, these rise right to the top of list.
HARRIS: There's a great segue. Speaking of quality of life, we also asked students which universities and college campuses gave them the best quality of life, whether students were happy. Let's look at this list here. And DePaul University, in Chicago, Pamona College, Dartmouth College, William Jewell College and Whitman College.
Explain why the students of these places may be happier than any students elsewhere in the land.
FRANEK: Well, one of the things that we're looking for at quality of life is overall experience, not just in the classroom, but how happy a student is overall. So that could take into account residence hall comfort, great food on campus, the city or town that a student is studying in. So all of those things culminating into this happiest student list. I think it's no surprise that DePaul came to the top.
HARRIS: Yes, I'm not too surprised to see that one either, to tell you truth.
How about the next list here. The next one that we culled from your book was the best -- or schools that had the best examples of diversity on campus. Let's see if we put that list up. Here we go. The most diverse student populations, Rutgers University, George Mason University, University of Maryland, City University of New York and Occidental College. and again, we see quite a few urban colleges here.
FRANEK: Yes, and it's so good. I'm glad you brought out this list as well, because there are some wonderful gems that don't get a lot of publicity overall. I think it's no surprise that Rutgers -- it's a huge school, over 30,000 undergraduates, plus all the graduate students. It's a wonderful melting pot of undergrad and of grad students. And I think it's no surprise that came at the top of the list. But other smaller schools, like Occidental, wonderful school, and for such a small size, really diverse.
HARRIS: In fact, that Is the smallest one on that list right there. Very interesting.
OK, finally, let's wrap it up here. Bring it on home with us with the best bang for your buck. Let's take a look at this list here. I want to have you explain to us how it is you determined that Marlboro College, Lake Forest College, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Grinnell College and Brigham Young University are the ones that give students and maybe families as well their best bang for the buck. What is it?
FRANEK: What we're looking for is not overall sticker price for a specific school. We are looking for the sticker price of the school, but also how much a school can offset that general cost for a family through non-need based, as well as need-based aid. So what we don't factor into these lists are how money a student is taking out in addition loans to pay for school, or for college work study, simply free money -- that's the best kind certainly -- that a student can take out and not have to pay back to a college.
HARRIS: Great job. Rob Franek, thanks a lot. Appreciate that.
FRANEK: Thanks, Leon.
HARRIS: It's a great list, and a lot of work you guys put into that. And it shows. Good luck.
FRANEK: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired August 20, 2003 - 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: Where does a smart student find an academically challenging campus without compromising his pocket protector? You know that's what you're thinking about this morning.
Well, if you are, just check out the new college rankings. They are out this week. Survey takers got the opinions of more than 100,000 college kids on some 351 different campuses. Yale University is the top of the class academically this year in the rankings by "The Princeton Review."
Rob Franek is the survey director and author of "The Best 351 Colleges."
He joins us in New York this morning. Good to see you. How are you?
ROB FRANEK, SURVEY DIR. & AUTHOR, "THE BEST 351 COLLEGES": Pretty good. Thanks for having me.
HARRIS: Hey, any big surprises before we get started looking at these lists?
FRANEK: I think one of the biggest surprises is over the last couple of years, we've noticed a lot of schools in urban areas have become very popular. So No. 1 on our great college town list is NYU.
HARRIS: Really? OK, you know what, I can actually see that, lots to do there. Lots of list to get through, too. And let's see if we can tackle four or five of these this morning, if we can get through them this morning.
Starting off with best academics. Let's take a look at the colleges that you list here as having the best academics.
FRANEK: Yes, best academic experience rates kids -- we talk to students and try to gauge how much they're working inside the classroom and how much they are gaining from their experience outside the classroom. So we ask them about professors, accessibility of those professors, both inside and outside the classroom.
HARRIS: Yes, and no really surprise here, at least not to me -- you see No. 1 coming in there at the top, Yale, then Princeton, then Duke University, then Amherst College and then MIT.
Next, since you mentioned professors, let's take a look at next list, the schools that your survey found out were the ones that students thought had the best professors. Let's look at this list here, starting with Middlebury College, Carlton College, Davidson College, Harvey Mudd College, and Seattle University. I'm guessing that a lot of folks have not heard of all these schools.
FRANEK: Yes, and I'm so glad that you brought out (UNINTELLIGIBLE) list, because since the book is called the best 351 colleges, we're not just serving the top 40 schools based on academics across the country. Students can come on to our Web site, princetonreview, com, and fill in as many surveys as they can for that one student.
But this is a really useful list, because it's something that you're maybe will not hear about on a college viewbook or you're not going to hear about on a college tour. We try to get in and ask these tough questions, and then report it back to the public.
HARRIS: What kind of criteria, though, would students use to determine who has the best professors?
FRANEK: We asked them accessibility questions, how accessible a professor is both inside and outside of the classroom, how engaging they are. So academics, since it's a huge part of quality of life for a college, these rise right to the top of list.
HARRIS: There's a great segue. Speaking of quality of life, we also asked students which universities and college campuses gave them the best quality of life, whether students were happy. Let's look at this list here. And DePaul University, in Chicago, Pamona College, Dartmouth College, William Jewell College and Whitman College.
Explain why the students of these places may be happier than any students elsewhere in the land.
FRANEK: Well, one of the things that we're looking for at quality of life is overall experience, not just in the classroom, but how happy a student is overall. So that could take into account residence hall comfort, great food on campus, the city or town that a student is studying in. So all of those things culminating into this happiest student list. I think it's no surprise that DePaul came to the top.
HARRIS: Yes, I'm not too surprised to see that one either, to tell you truth.
How about the next list here. The next one that we culled from your book was the best -- or schools that had the best examples of diversity on campus. Let's see if we put that list up. Here we go. The most diverse student populations, Rutgers University, George Mason University, University of Maryland, City University of New York and Occidental College. and again, we see quite a few urban colleges here.
FRANEK: Yes, and it's so good. I'm glad you brought out this list as well, because there are some wonderful gems that don't get a lot of publicity overall. I think it's no surprise that Rutgers -- it's a huge school, over 30,000 undergraduates, plus all the graduate students. It's a wonderful melting pot of undergrad and of grad students. And I think it's no surprise that came at the top of the list. But other smaller schools, like Occidental, wonderful school, and for such a small size, really diverse.
HARRIS: In fact, that Is the smallest one on that list right there. Very interesting.
OK, finally, let's wrap it up here. Bring it on home with us with the best bang for your buck. Let's take a look at this list here. I want to have you explain to us how it is you determined that Marlboro College, Lake Forest College, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Grinnell College and Brigham Young University are the ones that give students and maybe families as well their best bang for the buck. What is it?
FRANEK: What we're looking for is not overall sticker price for a specific school. We are looking for the sticker price of the school, but also how much a school can offset that general cost for a family through non-need based, as well as need-based aid. So what we don't factor into these lists are how money a student is taking out in addition loans to pay for school, or for college work study, simply free money -- that's the best kind certainly -- that a student can take out and not have to pay back to a college.
HARRIS: Great job. Rob Franek, thanks a lot. Appreciate that.
FRANEK: Thanks, Leon.
HARRIS: It's a great list, and a lot of work you guys put into that. And it shows. Good luck.
FRANEK: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
