美国25所热门学校

美国《新闻周刊》（Newsweek）与卡普兰教育机构联手推出的《卡普兰大学指南》，选出2006年度全美二十五间最受欢迎的大学。各校除提供上乘教育，还各具特色，迎合不同学子的需要。名单是经访问学生、处理入学申请的大学职员以及观察家们之后定出，部份国际驰名（如哈佛），部份则不为区外人士熟悉，但共通点是近年学术成绩斐然，报读人数增加。这份大学指南列出的最受欢迎大学，林林总总，有的专长于某学术或范畴，有的以校园特点取胜，而其中总有一间会令人向往。

OK, Harvard's on our list. But so are some other colleges you might not have heardof. Here are our top picks for the places that everyone's talking about for 2006.

Oh, serendipity. A generation ago, when Americans spoke of the best colleges, they had a pretty good idea: the oldest ones, a few of the biggest, and not much else. Even now, among the old guard, that focus often remains on the eight Ivies, a few small institutions like Amherst and some celebrated state schools like the University of California, Berkeley. But today's students, when they start looking for their own best schools to attend, often wind up discovering many colleges that are just as good, and often just about as difficult to get into, as the famous ones. And it's sort of cool to find out that a hot school doesn't need to be one Grandma and Grandpa have even heard of. With so much attention paid to college selection these days - as the number of high-school graduates reaches 3 million and beyond - families are looking for lesser-known schools that make the grade, along with those icons that live up to their reputations. All 25 colleges on the NEWSWEEK-Kaplan Hot List have one attribute in common: they're creating buzz among students, school officials and longtime observers of the admissions process.

Our choices, and corresponding categories, are inherently subjective: there are no equations for assessing the magic that makes a school sparkle. And the colleges suit a range of tastes and needs - big and small, urban and rural, private and public. But each reflects a place that is preparing students well for a complex world. Herewith, America's Hottest Colleges for 2006.

A. HOTTEST FOR REJECTING YOU 最难进的大学

Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 哈佛大学，马萨诸塞州坎布里奇市

In 2004 Yale edged out Harvard as the most selective Ivy. But after Harvard announced that families earning less than $40,000 wouldn't have to pay the usual parental contribution to tuition, applications jumped to a record 22,796, and the acceptance rate in 2005 dropped to a new low for the Ivies, only 9.1 percent. The aid initiative increased the number of low-income students - 296 qualified. Bottom line: competition was tougher than ever. Harvard undergrads often mock themselves. "It's nice to know you're going to school with people who will control the world," says senior Simon Vozick-Levinson. But they also know how to take advantage. The student paper, the Crimson, is putting out a new book, "How They Got Into Harvard," which has profiles of successful applicants, along with a second book full of winning application essays.

B. HOTTEST FOR SCIENCE 最热门理科大学

University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, Calif. 加州大学圣地亚哥分校

Science can be fun. UCSD undergraduates mark the end of the school year with the Watermelon Drop, a 40-year-old tradition that began when physics students tested velocity by dropping a melon from seven stories up. On a campus where a quarter of the $1.8 billion in revenue is federal research funds, and where there have been eight Nobel laureates on the faculty, the science is also quite serious. UCSD chancellor Marye Anne Fox, an organic chemist, says welcoming undergraduates into labs is a priority. The school, she says, is also raising the quality of undergraduate education by offering new science majors like molecular synthesis or bioinformatics. Its coastal location, too, is a plus. "Where else can you collect samples from the beach, the desert and the mountains all in one day, and still have time to run genetic tests on them that night?" says Meg Eckles, a biology doctoral student. Faculty and alumni have spun off nearly 200 companies, including about a third of the region's biotech firms.

C. HOTTEST FOR LIBERAL ARTS 最热门文科学院

Macalester College, St. Paul, Minn. 麦卡莱斯特学院，明尼苏达州圣保罗市

The 1,900-student campus in the middle of a vibrant metropolis has become a key recipient of the growing number of Harvard, Yale and Princeton applicants who are rejected for no other reason than that those schools don't have space for all the A-plus students who apply. Macalester has one faculty member for every 11 students and an emphasis on international affairs symbolized by one of its most famous alumni, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The college has six language residences: Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Russian and Spanish. It offers the intimacy of the archetypal small-town campus - in the middle of the Twin Cities. Applications have increased 60 percent since 1995.

D. HOTTEST SMALL STATE UNIVERSITY 最热门的小型州立大学

College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Va. 威廉与玛丽学院，弗吉尼亚州威廉斯堡市

It still calls itself a college, even though it has significant graduate programs. William & Mary has only 5,700 undergraduates, which is small for a state school, and considers that a recruiting tool. All freshmen take a seminar with a senior professor and only 16 other students. Since 1999, applicants have jumped 34 percent.  

E. HOTTEST BIG STATE UNIVERSITY最热门的大型州立大学

Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind. 印地安那大学布鲁明顿分校

Much of the charm of life among the Hoosiers springs from tradition, like the Little 500 bicycle races and accompanying weekend partying dramatized in the 1979 film "Breaking Away." But what stokes increasing interest in Indiana from out-of-staters, who make up a third of the freshman class, is IU's eager embrace of the Information Age. The technology giant Intel ranked it first among U.S. universities for wireless connectivity. It doesn't hurt that IU also provides vast choices: 328 degree programs and 130 majors for 30,000 undergraduates.

F. HOTTEST FOR COLD WEATHER 最热门的有着寒冷天气的大学

University of Vermont, Burlington, Vt. 佛蒙特大学，佛蒙特州伯林顿市

Junior Carly Lehrer uses a term, "chillaxed" - a combination of "chill" and "relaxed" - for the mood at UVM even when cold winds blow. That's when students head for Burlington's leading in-door attractions, like a concert at ClubMetronome or a burger at Sweetwaters. Eighty new tenure-track faculty members are being hired, and $300 million in capital improvements is underway. Applications are up 65 percent since 2000. UVM has 8,000 undergrads on a hilly campus overlooking Lake Champlain, with ski mecca Stowe not far away. The ski team is ranked No. 1 in the East.

G. HOTTEST FOR SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING 最热门的自主学习大学

Brown University, Providence, R.I. 布朗大学，罗得岛州普维敦斯市

The 5,700-undergraduate school remains the only Ivy with no core requirements - very appealing to students who think they are bright enough to create their own concentrations. The Brown Curriculum, which gives this curricular freedom some structure, has been around since 1969. To graduate, students must still demonstrate competence in writing, successfully complete at least 30 courses and meet the requirements for their concentration.

H. HOTTEST FRESHMAN YEAR 最受新生欢迎的学院

Ursinus College, Collegeville, Pa. 乌尔辛纳斯学院，宾夕法尼亚州学院村市

Located near Philadelphia, Ursinus has added something rare: a full-credit one-year course that all freshmen must take. It's called the Common Intellectual Experience (CIE), and it has become a sensation among the school's 1,500 undergraduates as a way of bonding in a literary journey. "I have walked in on my roommate reading the unassigned chapters of Nietzsche's 'The Genealogy of Morals' instead of her usual Wednesday-night reruns of 'Sex and the City'," says sophomore Sally Brosnan. The CIE reading list attempts to capture crucial moments in the human experience, from Genesis to the Bhagavad-Gita to Conrad's "Heart of Darkness."

I. HOTTEST MILITARY SCHOOL 最热门军事院校

The Citadel, Charleston, S.C. 要塞军校，南卡罗来纳州查尔斯顿市

The 1,900 cadets whose Citadel forebears fired some of the first shots of the Civil War aren't required to join the military on graduating, but more than a third do. The state college didn't look good 10 years ago, when Shannon Faulkner sued to become the first female cadet and found less than a warm welcome. But women now make up 6 percent of the corps. The cadets call the school "El Cid," and say that the bonds formed during the first summer of training in the Iberia-like Charleston heat last a lifetime.