Here is a list of outstanding colleges gathered from several college guidebooks and other sources, designed to show the broad array of reasonable college choices available for a well prepared student. The list is a compilation of colleges mentioned particularly often in college guidebooks that mention the few hundred best or most interesting colleges in the country. The asterisks next to each entry indicate the selectivity of the college by the methodology of the 2009 Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges 28th Edition.

Agnes Scott College (Decatur, GA) *
Allegheny College (Meadville, PA) *
American University (Washington, DC) **
Amherst College (Amherst, MA) ***
Barnard College (New York, NY) ***
Bates College (Lewiston, ME) ***
Boston College (Chestnut Hill, MA) ***
Boston University (Boston, MA) **
Bowdoin College (Brunswick, ME) ***
Brandeis University (Waltham, MA) ***
Brigham Young University (Provo, UT) **
Brown University (Providence, RI) ***
Bryn Mawr College (Bryn Mawr, PA) ***
Bucknell University (Lewisburg, PA) ***
California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, CA) ***
Carleton College (Northfield, MN) ***
Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA) ***
Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, OH) ***
Claremont McKenna College (Claremont, CA) ***
Colby College (Waterville, ME) ***
Colgate University (Hamilton, NY) ***
College of New Jersey (Ewing, NJ) ***
College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, MA) ***
College of William and Mary (Williamsburg, VA) ***
Colorado College (Colorado Springs, CO) *
Columbia University (New York, NY) ***
Connecticut College (New London, CT) ***
Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (New York, NY) ***
Cornell University (Ithaca, NY) ***
Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH) ***
Davidson College (Davidson, NC) ***
DePauw University (Greencastle, IN) *
Dickinson College (Carlisle, PA) **
Duke University (Durham, NC) ***
Emory University (Atlanta, GA) ***
Fordham University (Bronx, NY) *
Franklin and Marshall College (Lancaster, PA) ***
Furman University (Greenville, SC) **
George Washington University (Washington, DC) ***
Georgetown University (Washington, DC) ***
Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, GA) **
Gettysburg College (Gettysburg, PA) *
Grinnell College (Grinnell, IA) **
Gustavus Adolphus College (St. Peter, MN) *
Hamilton College (Clinton, NY) ***
Harvard University (Cambridge, MA) ***
Harvey Mudd College (Claremont, CA) ***
Haverford College (Haverford, PA) ***
Illinois Wesleyan University (Bloomington, IL) **
Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD) ***
Kenyon College (Gambier, OH) ***
Lafayette College (Easton, PA) ***
Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA) **
Macalester College (St. Paul, MN) ***
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA) ***
Miami University (Oxford, OH) *
Middlebury College (Middlebury, VT) ***
Mount Holyoke College (South Hadley, MA) **
New York University (New York, NY) ***
Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) ***
Oberlin College (Oberlin, OH) ***
Occidental College (Los Angeles, CA) ***
Ohio State University: Columbus Campus (Columbus, OH) *
Penn State University Park (State College, PA) *
Pepperdine University (Malibu, CA) *
Pomona College (Claremont, CA) ***
Princeton University (Princeton, NJ) ***
Reed College (Portland, OR) ***
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY) **
Rhodes College (Memphis, TN) *
Rice University (Houston, TX) ***
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (Terre Haute, IN) ***
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey: New Brunswick/Piscataway (NJ) *
Scripps College (Claremont, CA) ***
Skidmore College (Saratoga Springs, NY) *
Smith College (Northampton, MA) **
St. Olaf College (Northfield, MN) *
Stanford University (Stanford, CA) ***
State University of New York at Binghamton (NY) *
Swarthmore College (Swarthmore, PA) ***
Syracuse University (Syracuse, NY) *
Texas A and M University (College Station, TX) *
Trinity College (Hartford, CT) **
Tufts University (Medford, MA) ***
Tulane University (New Orleans, LA) ***
Union College (Schenectady, NY) *
University of California: Berkeley (CA) **
University of California: Los Angeles (CA) ***
University of California: San Diego (La Jolla, CA) *
University of Chicago (IL) ***
University of Florida (Gainesville, FL) *
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (IL) **
University of Maryland–College Park (College Park, MD) *
University of Miami (Coral Gables, FL) ***
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI) **
University of Minnesota–Twin Cities (Minneapolis, MN) *
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (NC) ***
University of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, IN) ***
University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA) ***
University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, PA) *
University of Richmond (Richmond, VA) ***
University of Rochester (Rochester, NY) ***
University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA) ***
University of Texas at Austin (TX) *
University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA) ***
University of Wisconsin–Madison (WI) *
University of the South (Sewanee, TN) *
Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN) ***
Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, NY) ***
Villanova University (Villanova, PA) ***
Wabash College (Crawfordsville, IN) *
Wake Forest University (Winston-Salem, NC) ***
Washington and Lee University (Lexington, VA) ***
Washington University in St. Louis (St. Louis, MO) ***
Wellesley College (Wellesley, MA) ***
Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT) ***
Wheaton College (Wheaton, IL) *
Whitman College (Walla Walla, WA) ***
Williams College (Williamstown, MA) ***
Yale University (New Haven, CT) ***