25 New Ivies

Senior Nicole Stallings, president of the Student Assembly, chose the school because "I felt like no matter what I decided, there would be a good program." That range of excellence is a huge attraction of this world-class research university. From engineering to the humanities to medicine, Michigan is at the top of just about every list of academic leaders. Many out-of-state students come for the competitive honors program in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA), which usually includes 1,700 to 1,800 students a year--or 10 to 11 percent of LSA undergrads. Honors students get smaller class sizes and can choose to live in a dedicated area of campus. That makes it a small grouping within the larger university, which serves 25,500 undergrads and 14,500 grad students. Overlap schools: New York University, University of Pennsylvania and Northwestern.

New York University

New York, N.Y.

NYU is not for the timid. In the heart of Greenwich Village, there is no traditional campus. The urban experience is apparently appealing: this past season, there were a record 34,944 applications. The previous record? The year before. They're attracted by strong programs in NYU's eight colleges.

Arts and Sciences is the largest (the most popular majors are politics, journalism and English). The Tisch School of Performing Arts, with about 700 freshmen, is one of the hottest arts schools in the country. Although living in Manhattan is obviously key, NYU also promotes study abroad. Two years ago the school opened a site in Ghana; the newest addition is Shanghai. NYU is setting up broad curriculum programs at each of its sites so that students from all majors can participate. And back in the big city, there's no chance to get bored: NYU offers more than 2,500 courses and 25 different majors.

University of North Carolina