STUDENT SURVEY NAMES REED TOP U.S. SCHOOL IN ACADEMICS

* The Princeton Review also lists the school among those with the least
religious students and most "reefer madness"

No thanks to divine intervention, Reed College was named the country's top
academic school for undergraduates this year by The Princeton Review.

The private liberal arts college in Southeast Portland got top marks for
academics and professor quality -- and for least religious students -- in a
national survey of 56,000 students conducted by the company.

Reed, known as an intellectually intense school that produces many future
Ph.Ds, also placed third in the survey's "reefer madness" category for
marijuana use -- a testament, perhaps, to its famously laissez-faire
lifestyle.

The Princeton Review publishes various college guides and runs test
preparation programs but is not affiliated with Princeton University.
Students rate only their own schools; Reed's ranking means its respondents
were nearly unanimous in their self-analysis, at least in those areas. The
results appear in the company's new "The Best Colleges" book.

Such popular college rankings often play an influential role in forming
high school students' opinions about schools and where they should apply.

But Reed officials are ambivalent, at best, about turning up at the top of
the latest such hits list. The school isn't trumpeting how well it
performed in the survey.

The college has received national notice for opposing such surveys,
especially the U.S. News & World Report's annual college rankings. That
list, released last week, uses a complicated equation of admissions
selectivity, graduation rate and other factors to rate schools.

"We're still committed to the principle that rankings aren't important,"
Reed Vice President Larry Large said. "We hope that when people look at
these sorts of things that they look beyond the rankings, even though we're
in first place on some key issues. It might pique interest in our school."

Reed also ranked in the top 10 in the areas of least diverse campus,
politically left-leaning students and number of student study hours.

Large said Reed's ranking for marijuana use reflects increasing use of the
drug among young people nationwide, not any problem at Reed.

"That's nothing anyone here celebrates," he said.

Reed is also pushing to recruit more minority students, Large said. The
school's student body is 15 percent minority. Asian Americans make up 8
percent. African Americans and Native Americans represent about 1 percent
each.

Lewis & Clark College in Portland joined Reed in the top 10 in the least
religious and marijuana categories. The University of Oregon ranked third
for bad dorms and No. 14 overall among party schools. Willamette University
made The Princeton Review list of top schools but didn't place in the top
20 in any category.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski