The Hot Schools Of 2004

Every year, high-school seniors undergo two rituals. One is picking a college. The second is ranking their classmates for the yearbook: Most Outgoing, Most Athletic, Best All-Around. Choosing an undergraduate institution may be more important, but voting on senior superlatives is way more fun. We decided to combine the two rites of passage. Meet the "Hot Schools" Class of 2004.

After interviewing deans, admissions officers, guidance counselors and students--and keeping an eye on the news--we've put together a list of schools that have buzz. Some of our picks are private, some are public. Some have innovative curricula or comprehensive financial-aid packages (always a plus). Some focus on the arts, while others are known for tech or business acumen.

Lately we've been told that students are less concerned with location and more interested in applying to "families" of schools with comparable curricula or campus lifestyles. If you're among these students, you can use our list to create a family of your own: at the bottom of each entry, you can see where else students who chose these schools applied. In many cases, these "runners-up" have stronger brand names than our up-and-coming "winners." That's OK with us. We focused on schools that might surprise you. (For the complete story, see page 26 of the Kaplan-NEWSWEEK col-guide.)

BEST ALL-AROUND

Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa

Yes, it's in a tiny corn-farming hamlet. But Grinnell is as cosmopolitan as any school, with 1,500 students from all 50 states and 55 countries. Average SAT scores hover around 1350, and famous alumni include Intel cofounder Robert Noyce and jazz great Herbie Hancock. Grinnell has brawn, too--its basketball team won the Midwest Conference championship in 2001 and 2003. And Grinnell encourages a broad range of undergraduate research. Senior Holly Maness, a 2003 Goldwater scholar, has already been published in prestigious journals for her astrophysics research on nebulae.