PC Mag and The Princeton Review compiled a “Top 10 Wired Colleges” list that took into account the ability of students to use P2P and file-sharing software.
PC Mag recently teamed up with The Princeton Review to find the “most connected, plugged-in, and high-tech campuses” in the United States, a survey which also factored in the ability to use P2P and file-sharing applications.
They conducted an online survey of all the colleges featured in the 2007 edition of The Princeton Reviews “The Best 361 Colleges.”
The jointly designed survey was intended to assess “…all aspects of technology and connectivity” on the campuses.
Of the 26 questions that were asked, 18 of them were divided into 3 categories: academic, infrastructure, and student resources.
Academic section included:
- percentage of professors who post course materials and lectures online
- whether the school offers faculty computer training, and the method(s) of delivering those online offerings
- whether students can take tests online
- whether the school offers “distance learning,” and what other kinds of high-tech courses are offered
The Infrastructure section included:
- percentage of dorms that have computer labs or public-use computers
- average age of the majority of the public-use computers
- percentage of computer labs that are open 24/7
- methods of 24/7 tech support that are available to students.
The Student Resource section included:
- what kinds of hardware, software, and technology services are included with tuition
- whether students have free online storage
- whether students can download applications and music
- whether the school loans equipment such as digital cameras and LCD projectors free of charge
- whether the school has its own online social network
- whether the school streams media from the college radio or television station
- whether the school allows peer-to-peer connections over the campus network
It’s this last section of questions that make the survey so notable, and makes the results a useful resource in determining what college one may choose to attend or transfer to.
Additional points for less restrictive measures on P2P and bandwidth connections make for a higher score and rank in the survey.
The 240 schools that completed the online survey were ranked based on their answers to the questions posed, and from which the “Top 10 Wired Colleges” list was created.
Here are the results.
The Top 10 Wired Colleges
- #1Villanova University
- #2 M.I.T.
- #3 Indiana University Bloomington
- #4 Swarthmore College
- #5 Creighton University
- #6 University of Illinois
- #7 Michigan Tech University
- #8 University of Southern California
- #9 Quinnipiac University
- #10 University of Oklahoma
So what exactly makes Villanova so special?
Bandwidth restrictions: No individual restriction, resident hall network aggregate bandwidth is restricted
How about MIT?
Bandwidth restrictions: NONE
This in stark contrast to my alma mater, he University of San Diego, which didn’t make the list, and apparently rightly so.
Bandwidth restrictions: Block peer-to-peer at Internet connection. Bandwidth only 20MBps for dorms.
More Top Wired Colleges
Now the authors went so far as to actually compile a list of the top 20, so I have included the rest here for you to see.
- #11 United States Military Academy
- #12 University of Minnesota Twin Cities
- #13 St. John’s University
- #14 Clarkson University
- #15 Temple University
- #16 Stevens Institute of Technology
- #17 Stanford University
- #18 Eckerd College
- #19 Pomona College
- #20 University of Virginia
What I find interesting is that look who’s number 11 on the list…….that’s right, “Uncle Sam.” I find it pretty funny that the federal government actually ranks higher than the likes of Stanford for example, when theoretically speaking it should be dead last. But, then again, the United States Military Academy has what no other college has to police itself: a stringent honor code where one can be dismissed for things such as lying, cheating, or stealing. No other school so stringently enforces such a values system with the threat of dismissal that I know of.
In any event the results are pretty interesting. you can check out the complete list, college by college here.
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