The Top 10 Dream Colleges For Students

Which colleges do high school students dream of attending? Last year, it was Stanford University, but they've been knocked out of the top slot by Harvard, according to a new survey.

The Princeton Review asked college applicants where they would go to school if money and acceptance were not factors. They've released the results in their 2012 College Hopes and Worries survey.

In addition to applicants' top picks for college, the survey found 86 percent of respondents say financial aid will be "very" necessary and 75 percent reporting the state of the economy has affected their college choices.

Take a look at the top 10 colleges students picked. Are these the schools you dream of attending? Let us know in the comments section.

Loading Slideshow

• 10. University of Southern California

  Photo Credit: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Doheny.jpg" target="_hplink">Padsquad</a>

• 9. Brown University

  Photo Credit: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brown_university_robinson_hall_2009a.JPG" target="_hplink">chensiyuan</a>

• 8. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  Photo Credit: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MIT_Building_10_and_the_Great_Dome,_Cambridge_MA.jpg" target="_hplink">John Phelan</a>

• 7. Yale University

  Photo Credit: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Yale_law_school.JPG" target="_hplink">Pradipta Mitra</a>

• 6. University of California-Los Angeles

  Photo Credit: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Janss_Steps,_Royce_Hall_in_background,_UCLA.jpg" target="_hplink">Amerique</a>

• 5. Princeton University

  Photo Credit: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Princeton_University_Chapel_2003.jpg" target="_hplink">Cocoloco</a>

• 4. New York University

  Photo Credit: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NYU-Gallatin_School.jpg" target="_hplink">Padraic Ryan</a>

• 3. Columbia University

  Photo Credit: Billy Hathorn

• 2. Stanford University

  Photo Credit: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stanford_University_Walkway_Panorama.jpg" target="_hplink">Jawed Karim</a>

• 1. Harvard College

  Photo Credit: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Harvard_yard_winter_2009j.JPG" target="_hplink">chensiyuan</a>

Comments

[Kourtney Passero]

11:00 PM on 05/01/2012

I would pick columbia..Best school

[Hani Syed]

10:48 PM on 04/10/2012

i would pick MIT to be honest, and no. 8 slot for MIT is lill bit surprizing :O

[maxlolmax]

07:51 PM on 04/09/2012

I go to NYU. It's great, a fantastic school, but definitely not for everyone. I recommend it if you have an assertive personality and if you thrive in urban environments. If you're looking to be coddled and have a traditional college experience, stay away. But, for the people I know here and me, it's the perfect school.

[Gx]

10:44 AM on 04/09/2012

they're almost all private, elite institutions. How telling.

[olgz]

08:12 PM on 04/16/2012

What do you mean "how telling"? In what way is the desire to go to college not "elitist" in the first place? If you're anti-establishment, then don't go to college at all. But if you want to go, who would say "yes, I'd choose a poor institution with worse professors and less challenging classmates over a state-of-the-art facility with the best teachers and smartest students"? Your comment makes no sense.

[Mac Schilder]

11:18 PM on 04/08/2012

I want to go to the Naval Academy!

[pepper1311]

03:15 PM on 04/09/2012

Enlist in the Navy and apply why in service, no need for a congressman to be involved.

[razzieman]

02:58 AM on 04/11/2012

Really lol? I'm midway through the process at the moment.

[Ben Wolfe Tillman]

11:14 PM on 04/08/2012

I'll take a west point, air force academy, naval academy, citadel, or VMI grad over any grad from these schools any day.

[Deirdre Alexandra Brady]

12:11 AM on 04/09/2012

Westpoint all the way ;D

[snesich]

09:56 PM on 04/08/2012

Part of the problem is that too many high school students, and their parents and the media have a focus and a bias towards THE BIG BRAND, THE BIG UNIVERSITY, THE BIG URBAN CAMPUS.

Overlooked in all of this is the fact that the best undergraduate education is to be found at small, excellent liberal arts colleges, often removed from the distractions of the Big City. Just to name a handful, students should know about Swarthmore, Mount Holyoke, Wesleyan, Hampshire, Middlebury, Smith, Bowdoin, Amherst, Haverford, Macalaster, Whitman, Bryn Mawr, Reed, Carlton, Grinnell, and many, many more.

In these schools, you'll actually be taught by the tenured, highly accomplished professor, and not just the graduate teaching assistants. In these schools, you won't be in a big lecture hall with 300 other people, but usually in a class of 18, where you can truly focus and excel.

So, think about it. The small liberal arts colleges are where you'll get the best college education---make the closest friendships and have the most memorable experiences that will last a lifetime.

Give this some thought as you contemplate your "dream" college.

[Michael Kelly Scott]

04:45 AM on 04/09/2012

The majority of the classes taught at USC after the 100-level are taught by tenured professors in groups no more than 30. I even had some 100-level courses like that. In 5 years there I had maybe 3 or 4 total classes bigger than that, and even those were taught by the professor. In those cases, graduate students handled the small group sections for further instruction and help with assignments.

[Mikey Harmon]

09:45 AM on 04/09/2012

I could honestly not agree with you anymore. I almost posted this identical comment but you took the words right out of my mouth. I currently attend an institution known as Miami Ad School. It's a portfolio center for advertising in which graduates from the last ten years have won eighty-five percent of every major communications and design award in the industry. This is the place where I'm getting the training I need from industry professionals who are passionate about our success. No lecture halls here.

[dlinden55]

07:02 PM on 04/06/2012

Don't forget Vanderbilt !!! Great school with a wonderful financial aid program..

[kanemakua]

03:25 PM on 04/04/2012

All valid comments, but the title of the article is, "The Top 10 Dream Colleges For Students". The list is a little surprising and the ranking of some of the schools. My children attended MIT and Harvard so I guess we're 2 for 2 on the list.

[booksrule9]

04:23 PM on 04/03/2012

Hmm, surprised UChicago wasn't on there. I guess not many like Chicago's weather.

[ptahian]

07:33 PM on 04/08/2012

Or the academic intensity.

[80eight]

03:57 PM on 04/09/2012

One of the popular t-shirts when my friend was there was: "UChicago: Where Fun Goes to Die"

[Comicoffee]

03:04 PM on 04/03/2012

I dreamed of going to Liberty University.
But then I woke up, screaming.

[Sean Myers]

07:50 PM on 04/14/2012

list of nightmare schools: liberty, regents u, oral roberts...

[Damario Fair]

11:56 AM on 04/03/2012

I'm really surprised no chicago schools were included

[opinionator73]

04:26 AM on 04/02/2012

Addendum - however Caltech has almost no party life at all and no greek system and no serious sports teams - which is another reason why it's paradise for a purist who really wants to be a scientist and not be bothered with all those distractions. There are fun activities but not the stuff that jocks and cheerleaders think are fun! lol.

[opinionator73]

04:24 AM on 04/02/2012

None of these schools come close to CalTech (California Institute of Technology) because it has all the science and nobel prize winners of MIT and only about 400 undergrads, so you have constant direct involvement w/ your profs. Not with TAs but profs, some holding the Nobel Prize. Einstein's apartment looks out over the quad You have the 9,000 ft San Bernadino/San Gregonio mountains looking over the campus w/ tons of hiking trails, waterfalls, etc. and the beach is also close by. You're in Pasadena which is a great place and within 20 min of Los Angeles. Add to that the immediate availablitiy of Jet Propulsion Laboratories (which is one of Caltech's LABS for God's sake) and you have paradise!

[realpragmatist]

12:58 PM on 04/01/2012

Maximum application-wise, it is, I believe, UCLA, which is very understandable.