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The University of Montana and Montana Tech in Butte are the only Montana universities included in the Princeton Review's soon-to-be-released annual edition, "Best 361 Colleges."

Neither school makes the cut for any of the "Top 20" lists, but both are profiled in the prestigious guide, which has been a critical resource for college-hunting students and parents since 1992.

According to promotional material from the New York City-based company known for its test prep course, books and educational services, the guide goes on sale Tuesday. However, the promo did not reveal any tantalizing tidbits, colorful comments or basic information included in the Montana schools' profiles.

No clues could be pried from UM's Main Hall late Monday afternoon, as President George Dennison and Provost Lois Muir could not be reached for comment.

However, the company did provide reams of other information about the guide.

To anoint schools with such titles as "Toughest College to Get Into" (this year, the honor goes to Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and "Happiest Students Overall" (the glory goes to Stanford University), data were gathered from 110,000 students at 361 top colleges who filled out a 70-question survey.

Of the 110,000 students, about 300 students at each campus participated.

The survey asked students to rate their schools on several topics and report their experiences. Topics included: academics/administration, life at the school, fellow students and themselves.

After the information was compiled and sorted, top honors were discovered.

Following are the top schools in a number of designations found in the 2006 edition:

• "Top Stone-Cold Sober Students," Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.
  
  
• "Top Party School," University of Wisconsin-Madison.
  
  
• "Best College Library," Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
  
  
• "Most Beautiful Campus," Pepperdine University, Malibu, Calif.
  
  
• "Best College Radio Station," Emerson College, Boston.

According to Missoulian archives, the last time UM made the guide's list was in 1999, when the Missoula campus was ranked the No. 6 "party school" in the nation and prompted Dennison to blast the guidebook and call it "the most bogus survey of 1999."

Last year, the Princeton Review gave UM the lowest possible ranking for academics and the highest possible ranking for campus life. The guide named both UM and Tech among the country's "best-value" universities.

In another survey, UM, Tech and UM-Western in Dillon were the only Montana schools mentioned in the annual U.S. News & World Report's 2006 college rankings.

Reporter Betsy Cohen can be reached at 523-5253 or at bcohen@missoulian.com

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