List mania: rankings bring cheers and jeers from administrators.

There's always a list. And just where a school places on a particular list can be a boon to or bane of its marketing and recruitment efforts. The Lists in question this time around are The Princeton Review's Annual College Rankings and Kaplan's Unofficial Unbiased Insider's Guide to the 328 Most Interesting Colleges, both published in mid-August.

The Princeton Review bases its rankings on survey responses from 106,000 students at 351 campuses, while Kaplan tallies responses from guidance counselors around the country.

Although most schools will point with pride to their various rankings for "best campus dorms" (Bowdoin, says Princeton Review) or "best academic facilities" (UCLA, according to KapLan), the accolades are not always so endearing. KapLan, for example, notes "MIT is the runaway winner for nerdiest school," while the University of Arizona is considered the "best place to go if you haven't saved enough for school."

Likewise, the Princeton Review claims Montana Tech at the University of Montana has the "Least happy students," and students at SUNY Stonybrook (NY) were "Least satisfied with financial aid."

Critics say the lists often paint an unfair picture. University of Colorado, Boulder officials, for example, are upset at receiving "best party school" honors by Princeton Review (up from the eighth spot last year). That kind of publicity isn't exactly helpful to the school's recruitment efforts, especially when it also earned three out of four stars for academics in the same survey. Ron Stump, vice chancellor for Student Affairs, says the focus on partying is misleading at a school that has numerous award-winning students and several Nobel Prize winners among its faculty. "If [students] want to study hard and play hard, they will get a great degree, but if they come here just to play hard, they won't be here long," Stump told reporters.