UAlbany makes Princeton Review

Well my graduate Alma Mater made the Princeton Review. I'm glad the quality of the academic program distracted me from the fact I was supposed to be miserable the entire time :) Here's the link:

Top 10 Schools with the Least Happy Students - MSN Encarta

I think part of the problem is that the UAlbany campus is pretty isolated (even with the free bus service), and the tower dorms are pretty bleak. For an undergraduate without cash or a car, you have to be creative to keep yourself entertained. The campus itself is a modernist concrete creation, so it lacks some of the warmer charm of a more traditional campus with ivy and quad. The challenging layout spills into the student center, where even high traffic areas like the book store and food services feel, "out of the way."

Still, I loved my time there. The academic programs are excellent. The faculty in my program would bend over backwards to help and work with students (Which was especially impressive given the size of our program and number of candidates). The adjunct faculty were knowledgeable practitioners, and my fellow graduate students were a fun eclectic bunch who knew how to work and play hard. I grew attached to the campus architecture, even though I could never give anyone directions to anything other than the student center and the library (UAlbany alums now what I'm talking about, though while I was there they made a handful of attemtps to distinguish a couple of the central buildings from each other.).

My kids liked the fact that, unlike certain stuffier institutions, playing in the fountain was allowed and encouraged.