February 4 2002

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No college wants to make The Princeton Review's lists for worst college food, least happy students, or most boring professors. But when Macalester College ranked No. 1 among colleges where "students ignore God on a regular basis," president Michael McPherson took action. "I'll bet this is driven by some question on [The Princeton Review's] Web survey about how often you pray," he said in an e-mail message to the assistant dean of admissions. "If that's right it would be easy enough to get ten students or something to log in and say they pray a lot or something. This is going to be a pain with religious alumni." After students complained that McPherson was trying to skew results, he relented. "This is all just nonsense, and I would have been smart to ignore it," he told the student newspaper. (Meanwhile, Wheaton College ranked No. 1 for most prayerful, but lost the top spot on the "stone-cold sober" list to Brigham Young University.)

The story was originally reported in the college's Mac Weekly.

The Princeton Review'scollege rankings are available online and include categories such as academics, extracurricular, social, and quality of life.

In addition to being number one in the "students ignore God on a regular basis" rankings, Macalester also made the top twenty in "class discussions encouraged," "best quality of life," "most nostalgic for Bill Clinton," and "Birkenstock-wearing, tree-hugging, clove-smoking vegetarians."