PRINCETON REVIEW'S ANNUAL COLLEGE RANKINGS BASED ON SURVEY OF 115,000 STUDENTS NOW OUT IN "BEST 361 COLLEGES - 2007 EDITION"

NEW YORK, NY, Aug. 21, 2006 ¡V According to a survey by The Princeton Review that asked 115,000 students at 361 top colleges to rate their schools on everything from profs to financial aid, the #1 school for undergraduate academics is the Univ. of Chicago. The best campus food is at Bowdoin College (Brunswick ME) while Smith College (Northampton MA) has the best dorms. The best-administered school is Pomona College in Los Angeles. Princeton Univ. (Princeton NJ) is where students are happiest with their financial aid.

Ranking lists of top 20 colleges in these and over 50 other categories are in the new 2007 edition of The Princeton Review book "Best 361 Colleges" (Random House / Princeton Review, $21.95), on sale tomorrow. The book's ranking lists will also be posted on www.PrincetonReview.com on Tuesday, August 22, 2006.

"We consider these colleges the best in the nation academically" says Robert Franek, author of the book at The Princeton Review. "But the real challenge for applicants and parents is finding the college that's best for them. That's why our profiles and unique ranking lists report in depth what the colleges' customers -- the students themselves -- tell us about their schools and their experiences at them."

Other ranking lists in the book and #1 colleges on them are:

• Best Professors -- Middlebury College (Middlebury VT)
• Most Beautiful Campus -- Pepperdine Univ. (Malibu CA)
• Happiest Students -- Brown Univ. (Providence RI)
• Most Liberal Students -- Warren Wilson College (Asheville NC)
• Most Conservative Students -- Hillsdale College (Hillsdale MI)
• Toughest College to Get Into -- Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (Cambridge MA)
• Frat & Sorority Scene Biggest -- DePauw Univ. (Greencastle IN)
• Top Party School -- Univ. of Texas (Austin TX)
• Top Stone-Cold Sober School -- Brigham Young Univ. (Provo UT)
• Most Religious Students -- Brigham Young Univ. (Provo UT)
• Race / Class Relations Friendliest -- Rice Univ. (Houston TX)
• Most Diverse Student Body -- DePaul Univ. (Chicago IL)
• Gay Community Most Accepted -- New York Univ. (New York NY)
• Students Pack the Stadiums for their Teams -- Univ. of Notre Dame (Notre Dame IN)
• Best College Library -- Harvard College (Cambridge MA)
• Best College Newspaper -- Yale Univ. (New Haven CT)

About the survey: The 80-question survey asks students about their school's academics / administration, campus life, student body, and themselves. Ranking lists tallies for this edition are based on surveys of 115,000 students (about 300 per campus) at the 361 schools in the book (not all schools nationwide) during the 2005-06 and / or previous two school years. Ninety-three percent were done online at http://survey.review.com. Seven percent were paper surveys conducted on campuses.

About the rankings: Rankings for 60 lists are based solely on student surveys. A school's appearance on these lists indicates a high consensus among its surveyed students about the topic. Rankings for the lists "Best Academics" and "Toughest to Get Into" factor in institutional data. No list is based on The Princeton Review's opinion of the schools. The Princeton Review does not rank the schools in the book 1 to 361.

About the book: "Best 361 Colleges" is one of more than 200 Princeton Review books published by Random House. Its two-page narrative profiles on each college also have school ratings (numerical scores) based on institutional data from the colleges. Among them are ratings for admissions selectivity, financial aid and fire safety. The first edition of the book was published in 1992. No school has ever paid a fee to be in the book.

The Princeton Review is a New York City-based company known for its test-prep courses, education services, and books. It is not affiliated with Princeton University or ETS.