The 25 Most Desirable Small Schools

With only 700 undergraduates,  Harvey Mudd College ranks 12th on Newsweek's Most Desirable Small Schools list.  Its location in Claremont, California, also makes it the tenth most desirable suburban school and No. 4 on Newsweek's list of schools combining great weather with great minds.  Harvey Mudd is one of the seven associated Claremont Colleges, which its founders modeled after England's Oxford University; other schools include Pomona, Scripps and Claremont McKenna.
 
Mudd students average 1560 on the SATs and 94 percent place in the top 10 percent of their high schools, with only 28 percent of applicants accepted. Though its focus on math, science and engineering make it sound like a technical institute,  Harvey Mudd is a private liberal arts college that aims to offer student instruction beyond its nine core science and math-based majors by nurturing interests in the arts and offering instruction in the humanities, history and politics. Newsweek also ranks Harvey Mudd 19th among the top 25 best gay-friendly schools in the United States.