25 New Ivies

Back in 1871, Colby became the first all-male college in New England to admit women. Since then, it's been attracting a diverse group of applicants, including, in the incoming class, from Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and Vietnam. That worldliness goes both ways. Seventy percent of students study abroad. Though Colby is small, with a freshman class of about 500, it offers 53 majors. The most popular are economics, biology, English and government. The school lures students who love the outdoors, and it boasts strong programs in the environmental sciences and plenty of opportunity to ski, rock-climb and fish. Overlap schools: Bowdoin, Dartmouth, Middlebury and Bates.

Colgate University

Hamilton, N.Y.

Can't decide between a university and a small liberal-arts college? Colgate has both, in an upstate New York setting that includes a lake and a golf course that Golf Digest rated as one of the top five collegiate courses in the United States. Naturally, the school has a Division I golf team. Colgate is "great for athletes, great for serious students and great for people who want to combine both," says Gary Ross, dean of admission. Despite a relatively small freshman class--about 750 students--Colgate offers an array of academic opportunities. The school runs 24 of its own study-abroad programs, with its own faculty; about 66 percent of the students at some point head for places like Australia, Japan, China and South America. Colgate is also the only college in the United States that offers students the chance to study for a semester for credit at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. Students, mainly premeds or science majors, can spend fall or spring at the NIH. Overlap schools: Cornell, Dartmouth, Middlebury and Georgetown.

Davidson College

Davidson, N.C.