Princeton Review's "Most Popular" College Radio Stations

I just got wind that Princeton Review released their annual college survey results this week. For their "2009 Best 368 Colleges" rankings they include a "Best College Radio Station" category that is based on responses to student surveys.

According to the Princeton Review press release: the rankings are "...based on surveys of 120,000 students (average 325 per campus) at the 368 schools in the book during the 2007-08 and/or previous two school years. Ninety-five percent were completed online at http://survey.review.com."

As I discussed in my March 2008 post about the 2008 results, this survey has been widely critiqued. The top college radio station list is actually based on college students' answer to the question: "How popular is the radio station?" So, this list has more to do with awareness of college radio on specific campuses, than on quality or popularity.

According to Princeton Review's 2009 rankings, the most popular college radio stations are at the following colleges. The ratings don't specify a specific station and in some cases colleges have more than one station, so I've added radio station names and links to this list since those are not included in the survey results.

Princeton Review's
Most Popular College Radio Stations-2009 Edition

1. Emerson College (WERS 88.9FM and WECB, Boston, Massachusetts)
2. St. Bonaventure University (WSBU-88.3 FM, St. Bonaventure, New York)
3. DePauw University (WGRE 91.5 FM, Greencastle, Indiana)
4. Stanford University (KZSU 90.1 FM, Stanford, CA) (New to list)
5. Ithaca College (WICB 91.7 FM and VIC Radio, Ithaca, New York)
6. Seton Hall University (WSOU 89.5 FM, South Orange, New Jersey)
7. Brown University (BSR 88.1 FM and WBRU 95.5 FM, Providence, RI)
8. Guilford College (WQFS 90.9 FM, Greensboro, North Carolina)
9. Knox College (WVKC 90.7 FM, Galesburg, Illinois)
10. Howard University (WHUR 96.3 FM & WHBC 830 AM, Washington D.C.)
11. University of Puget Sound (KUPS 90.1 FM Tacoma, Washington)
12. Carleton College (KRLX 88.1 FM, Northfield, Minnesota)
13. Alfred University (WALF 89.7 FM, Alfred, New York)
14. Whitman College (KWCW 90.5 FM, Walla Walla, Washington)
15. Reed College (KRRC 97.9 FM, Portland, Oregon)
16. Evergreen State College (KAOS 89.3 FM, Olympia, Washington)
17. Swarthmore College (WSRN 91.5 FM, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania)
18. Westminster College (WWNW 88.9 FM, New Wilmington, PA)
19. Skidmore College (WSPN 91.1 FM, Saratoga Springs, New York)
20. Bates College (WRBC 91.5 FM, Lewiston, Maine)

If you take a look at last year's survey, you'll see that the rankings are pretty much unchanged with the exception of the addition of Stanford University (whose station KZSU turned 60 last year and on that occasion brought back alum DJs for special programming reflecting all 60 years of their history) and Westminster College (a small liberal arts college that's home to Titan Radio, which released a press release about the Princeton results).

Leaving the list to make room for these two are Manhattanville College (WMVL-FM, NY) and Denison University (WDUB-FM, Ohio).