America's 25 Hot Schools

HOTTEST BIG 10 SCHOOL
Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill.
With six undergraduate schools, Northwestern attracts budding actors, journalists, engineers and teachers—along with plenty of liberal-arts students still unsure of their major. Each school has a national reputation and draws students from all over the country. Some standouts: the Medill School of Journalism, the School of Communication (which includes the drama and thea-ter program) and the engineering school, which is a center of research in nanotechnology. When they're not studying, Northwestern students can take in Wildcats football or head into Chicago, which is at the doorstep of the Evanston campus.

HOTTEST LIBRARY
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
Harvard's library system ranks with the best of any kind in the country, even the Library of Congress. "It contains the largest collection of every kind of book and bit of information anyone would ever want," says library director Sidney Verba. The collection includes more than 15 million volumes, 5.5 million microforms, 6.5 million manuscripts and 5 million other research materials such as photographs, maps and recordings. Even undergraduates take advantage of these resources for writing term papers and senior theses. Harvard's digital collection is particularly strong, and a big draw for students who want access to just about every online journal around.

HOTTEST RIDING SCHOOL
Hollins University, Roanoke, Va.
Located in the rolling hills of Virginia's horse country, Hollins offers outstanding training for equestriennes. With fewer than 800 women undergraduates, the school is a regular winner of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference championship, and the Hollins team has captured seven top 10 finishes in the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association. Many Hollins students work with horses after graduation as trainers, riders or veterinarians. But if they decide to get out of the saddle, the school also offers a strong liberal-arts program and a highly regarded creative-writing curriculum with dozens of famous grads (including Margaret Wise Brown, Annie Dillard and Lee Smith).

HOTTEST ARCHITECTURE
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
President Charles Vest is leaving his mark with an ambitious $1 billion construction program that includes Steven Holl's Simmons Hall, a controversial aluminum-clad dormitory that opened in 2002, and Fumihiko Maki's expansion of the Media Lab. The biggest buzz surrounds the Stata Center, a computer-science building by Frank Gehry that opened in spring 2004. The raucous, lighthearted exterior belies purposeful planning inside: the center not only contains labs for the "intelligence sciences" but also connects corridors and public spaces in a way that encourages spontaneous collaboration. MIT calls it an "intellectual village."

HOTTEST FOR FITNESS
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.
Long before the invention of the treadmill, Thomas Jefferson, the founder of UVA, wrote: "A strong body makes the mind strong." UVA follows that adage by offering both varsity competitors and weekend warriors some of the best fitness facilities in the country. Associate athletics director Mark Fletcher says 94 percent of all students use one of the four indoor recreation centers, which together make up 300,000 square feet of pools, running tracks, weight rooms and classrooms for yoga and kickboxing. The school also maintains a 23-acre park for outdoor field sports and jogging.

HOTTEST FOR DIVERSITY
Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn.
"We want to include everyone who would benefit and contribute to the kinds of discussions we have in classes," says Dean of Admissions Nancy Meislahn. More than a third are "students of color," and 7 percent are international students. An additional 15 percent are the first in their family to attend a four-year college. The result, Wesleyan officials say, is a great range of perspectives in the classroom.