25 New Ivies

Consider the location: a picturesque small city (with good restaurants) that's three hours from New York, Boston and Montreal. That's great for students who don't want to study in an urban area, yet want access to big cities. Skidmore offers a broad curriculum, with traditional majors in the liberal arts and sciences, but also in subjects like management and business. The college is strong as well in individual and performing arts. Saratoga Springs has the oldest Thoroughbred racetrack in the United States. It's the permanent summer home of the New York City Ballet and the Philadelphia Orchestra. The school runs its own programs in London, Spain, Paris, India and Beijing, and is affiliated with many other overseas programs. Overlap schools: Vassar, Connecticut College, Wesleyan and NYU.

Tufts University

Medford, Mass.

Applications to this medium-size university in a Boston suburb have increased 80 percent in the last decade. Lee Coffin, director of undergraduate admissions, says the school's mission is why. "We're using the intellect to make a difference in the world," he says. "Look at the liberal arts. Look at the engineering fields. How do you take these disciplines and interpret them broadly?" Students are expected to take what they learn and find real-world applications. That would mean, say, that a civil-engineering major would volunteer to help rebuild New Orleans. It's not surprising that international relations is the school's most popular major, followed by economics, political science, psychology and child development. More than 40 percent of students study abroad. Tufts stresses foreign languages, with full majors in Latin, Chinese, Japanese and Russian. Overlap schools: Brown, University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown and Cornell.

University of California, Los Angeles

Los Angeles, Calif.