(MONEY Magazine) – Need some help in deciding which of the nation's thousands of colleges would be best for your child? You've put yourself in good hands. The 21-page guide that begins at left provides basic information for 1,010 leading four-year colleges and universities that welcome students without regard to religious background. Our list includes more than 150 schools that did not qualify for the analysis that determined our 100 best buys (see page 14). Among those ineligible were the service academies, highly specialized colleges, schools that require students to work during the academic year, and colleges at which more than 45% of the students attend classes part time. If a college made our top 100 honor roll, its rank appears to the left of its listing in this guide. Those schools excluded from our value analysis are indicated by footnotes. MONEY and Wintergreen/Orchard House of New Orleans, a college directory publisher, gathered the data with surveys in the spring of 1994 and follow-up phone calls. All footnotes appear on page 95. Explanations of the statistics follow: Tuition and fees: The charges for freshmen in the 1994-95 school year. For public schools, we give the price for freshmen from out of state. Room and board: What the typical student pays, usually for a double room on campus and 14 meals a week. Percentage of students receiving financial aid: The portion of undergraduates who receive any type of financial aid, whether it is based on need or merit, including loans, tuition waivers, work/study and athletic scholarships. Percentage of need met: The average percentage of a student's financial need -- as determined by the federal aid formula -- that was actually filled. Average gift aid per student: The amount of scholarships and grants that came from the college's own funds in 1992-93, divided by the total number of undergraduates. Student/faculty ratio: The number of students per faculty member, as reported by the schools. (For our value rankings beginning on page 14, we used three different student/faculty ratios that we calculated from our own data.) Percentage who graduate in six years: The percentage of the class of 1987 who graduated by the summer of 1993. (Footnotes indicate where we used other graduation rates.) Student academic level: When they report the academic achievements of their most recent freshman class to Orchard House each year, the schools put a typical student in one of the following categories: 1. Top 20% of high school class, with GPA of B+ or better, SAT scores above 1,200 or ACT scores above 28 2. Top 40% of high school class, with GPA of B or better, SAT scores between 1,100 and 1,199, ACT scores of 27 to 28 3. Top half of class, GPA of B- or better, SAT scores between 950 and 1,099, ACT scores of 23 to 26 4. Top 60% of class, GPA of C or better, SAT scores between 800 and 949, ACT scores of 19 to 22 5. Grades/scores lower than above

Welcome, stranger Public schools from MONEY's top 100 with the highest percentage of students from out of state. (Note that three tied at 30% and at 27%.) New College (Fla.) 40% College of William and Mary (Va.) 34 University of Virginia 33 University of Wisconsin-Madison 32 Northeast Missouri State 30 University of Iowa 30 Mary Washington College (Va.) 30 Clemson University (S.C.) 28 Indiana University-Bloomington 27 James Madison University (Va.) 27 Miami University (Ohio) 27

Costs that jumped Colleges that imposed the largest increases in tuition and fees for the 1994-95 academic year. (We used out-of-state tuition for public schools.) Troy State University (Ala.) 28.0% Boise State University (Idaho) 26.9 Lewis-Clark State College (Ore.) 20.8 Northern State University (S.D.) 20.6 Barber-Scotia College (N.C.) 20.1 Le Moyne-Owen College (Tenn.) 18.7 Grove City College (Pa.) 18.1 University of Tulsa (Okla.) 17.6 Phillips University (Okla.) 17.4 McNeese State University (La.) 17.2

Doctors in the house Colleges reporting the highest percentage of graduates who go on to medical school Johns Hopkins University (Md.) 25% Wellesley College (Mass.) 21 Washington and Jefferson College (Pa.) 20 Emory University (Ga.) 18 Texas Christian University 17 Harvard University (Mass.) 16 Columbia University (N.Y.) 15 Heidelberg College (Ohio) 15 Bennett College (N.C.) 14 New York University 14

Integrated opportunities Schools from MONEY's top 100 with the highest percentage of minority students, excluding historically black colleges St. Mary' s University (Texas) 71% University of California-Los Angeles 61 University of California-Berkeley 58 Stanford University (Calif.) 44 New Jersey Institute of Technology 44 University of California-Davis 41 Claremont McKenna (Calif.) 38 Columbia University (N.Y.) 38 Pomona College (Calif.) 37 California Institute of Technology 36

Apprentice attorneys Colleges with the highest percentage of graduates entering law school Claremont McKenna College (Calif.) 25% Columbia University (N.Y.) 25 Tufts University (Mass.) 24 Emory University (Ga.) 22 University of Chicago 18 Tulane University (La.) 16 Villa Julie College (Md.) 16

All booked up Schools with the most titles in their libraries, including periodicals and microfilms (in millions) Harvard University (Mass.) 19.9 Yale University (Conn.) 14.5 University of California-Berkeley 12.9 University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign 12.7 University of California-Los Angeles 12.3 Cornell University (N.Y.) 12.0 University of Texas-Austin 12.0 University of Michigan 11.8 University of Washington 11.4 Columbia U. and Barnard College (N.Y.) 10.5

Dollars for scholars Schools that gave the most non-need-based financial aid per undergraduate University of Southern California $4,185 Buena Vista College (Iowa) 4,028 Transylvania University (Ky.) 3,703 Capital University (Ohio) 3,570 Bard College (N.Y.) 3,563 Goucher College (Md.) 3,517 Roanoke College (Va.) 3,515 Jamestown College (N.D.) 3,510 Albion College (Mich.) 3,490 Alma College (Mich.) 3,241

A friend in need Schools that gave the most aid based on financial need from their own funds, calculated as an average amount per student who qualified

Tulane University (La.) $12,539 St. Lawrence University (N.Y.) 12,119 Swarthmore (Pa.) 12,112 Amherst College (Mass.) 11,937 Haverford College (Pa.) 11,898 Cornell University (N.Y.) 11,794 Middlebury College (Vt.) 11,423 Bennington College (Vt.) 11,420 Hampshire College (Mass.) 11,385 Vassar College (N.Y.) 11,225

Priciest places Schools with the highest charges for tuition, fees, room and board Sarah Lawrence College (N.Y.) $26,914 Hampshire College (Mass.) 26,820 Barnard College (N.Y.) 26,770 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 26,675 Brandeis University (Mass.) 26,580 Yale University (Conn.) 26,350 Harvard University (Mass.) 26,230 Tufts University (Mass.) 26,172 University of Pennsylvania 26,126 Princeton University (N.J.) 26,120

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