25 Hottest Schools

Hottest for Free Tuition
Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York, N.Y.

This collection of 1,000 undergrads in the East Village of Manhattan is one of the oddest, and most selective, colleges in the country. Tuition is free, even for millionaires' kids, but the Cooper Union mantra is they all pay for it in sweat and blood because of demanding courses and tough grading. There are just three majors—architecture, art and engineering. That produces an unusual mix of computer engineers and introspective painters. The big excitement on campus, particularly for the architecture majors, is the new nine-story academic building, the city's first green college laboratory building with a cogeneration plant, radiant ceiling heating and cooling panels, and photovoltaic panels.

Hottest Mega-University
University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, Calif.

Coming from a small Roman Catholic high school, Joe Iniguez found the 37,000-student UCLA campus was just what he wanted. "I wanted to experience something bigger," he says. Some students, of course, find the university daunting, but the opportunities are so vast and the undergrads so smart (the freshman class had an average GPA of 4.3) that most find their niche. With degrees in 120 majors, hundreds of undergrads do publishable research with senior faculty.

Hottest Catholic School
Fordham University, New York, N.Y.

Amanda Fiscina was one of only 300 national semifinalists in the Intel Science Talent Search. That virtually wrote her ticket to an Ivy League school. So why did she pick Fordham? Although she's Roman Catholic, Fiscina had gone to public schools on Long Island, and wasn't thinking about a Catholic college until she attended a Fordham information session. She was impressed not just by the academics, but the school's commitment "to prepare us as people with strong morals, values and ethical behavioral standards." With 7,700 undergrads, Fordham has mostly small classes, never more than 25 students in Fiscina's first year.

Hottest Big-City School
Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

Washington's place in American history and culture keeps the annual flow of applications to Georgetown to more than 16,000, with only 20 percent accepted. Coming from Rhode Island, recent graduate Alana Chloe Esposito says she was thrilled with "internship opportunities, a fun off-campus social life" and being close to the nation's leaders. Classmate Jessica Kuntz says, "JT III didn't hurt," meaning she was drawn to the Hoya basketball team led by John Thompson III, son of Georgetown national-champion coach John Thompson Jr. With 6,300 undergrads, Georgetown is a leader in international studies. Enhancing that reputation: a new campus in Qatar and former secretary of State Madeleine Albright on the faculty.

Hottest for Pre-Meds
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.

The school's world-class labs and computer facilities have long been a draw, particularly for students studying anatomy and physiology. But Denver-based educational consultant Steven Antonoff sees it as more than that. "Social life has picked up in recent years," he says, "and there are wonderful humanities, music and public-policy/international studies." Bill Conley, dean of enrollment and academic services, says that increasing appreciation of the school's other academic strengths and its lovely campus in the middle of Baltimore have caused a 66 percent jump in Regular Decision applications and a 94 percent increase in Early Decision applications since 2002.

Hottest in the War on Terror
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, N.M.

New Mexico Tech, in a friendly desert town an hour south of Albuquerque, has reduced admissions red tape while quietly building, with a flood of federal dollars, one of the prime research centers for fighting the War on Terror. It is in some ways the Los Alamos of a new age, this time focusing on searching suitcases and disabling roadside explosives rather than building the A-bomb. The school boasts a stylish collection of historic buildings with red tile roofs and a lush 18-hole golf course.