Princeton Review ranks college newspapers

We may not agree with the rankings or the methods, but The Princeton Review has come out with its annual list of “best” college newspapers. The Daily Tar Heel at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill took the top spot.

The rankings are based on surveys asking 120,000 students at 366 top colleges to rate their schools in dozens of categories and report on their campus experiences. In addition to Best College Newspaper, categories include Best Classroom Experience (Reed College ranked #1), Most Beautiful Campus (Sweet Briar College), Most Liberal Students (Warren Wilson College), Most Conservative Students (Thomas Aquinas College), Biggest Frat & Sorority Scene (DePauw University), Top Party School (West Virginia University), and Stone-Cold Sober School (Brigham Young University).

The rankings are published in the 2008 edition of The Princeton Review's annual college guide Best 366 Colleges and online at http://www.PrincetonReview.com.

One thing to keep in mind: The survey only polled students at the “best” 366 colleges. My university, San Francisco State University, and thousands of others aren’t even in the running.

The Princeton Review came up with the college newspaper rankings based on the survey question “How popular is the newspaper?”

Not exactly scientific.

That said, here are the Princeton Review’s “best” newspapers by rank:

1. The Daily Tar Heel, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
2. Yale Daily News, Yale University
3. The Daily Pennsylvanian, University of Pennsylvania
4. The Hilltop, Howard University
5. The Red and Black, University of Georgia
6. The Diamondback, University of Maryland-College Park
7. The Harvard Crimson, Harvard University
8. The Daily Athenaeum, West Virginia University
9. The Daily Mississippian, University of Mississippi
10. The Daily Collegian, Penn State-University Park
11. The State News, Michigan State University
12. The Daily Reveille, Louisiana State University
13. Indiana Daily Student, Indiana University at Bloomington
14. The Daily Northwestern, Northwestern University
15. The Duke Chronicle, Duke University
16. The Daily Cardinal, University of Wisconsin-Madison (or do they mean the competing Badger Herald?)
17. The Daily Texan, University of Texas at Austin
18. The Daily Orange, Syracuse University
19. The Independent Florida Alligator, University of Florida
20. The Battalion, Texas A&M University-College Station