All great businesses start with a bright idea. The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine today release their eighth rankings of 25 top graduate and undergrad university programs for budding entrepreneurs, whose bright ideas can turn into successful businesses. The rankings are posted online at Entrepreneur magazine’s website, http://www.entrepreneur.com/topcolleges with facts about each university. The schools will be featured in the October issue of Entrepreneur magazine. The Princeton Review selected these 50 programs from about 2,000 surveyed, saying they satisfy multiple criteria within three main categories: students and faculty, academics and requirements, and enriching experiences outside the classroom. The top schools stand out because they have a high number of experienced faculty, students launching businesses after graduation, and experiences outside of the class room, says Princeton Review senior vice president and publisher Rob Franek. “Students are working with successful entrepreneurs who are working with the primary source and then bringing that experience back down to the classroom for that student,” says Franek. He adds that these schools often offer entrepreneurship competitions and classes to students of any major, creating a “culture of entrepreneurship.” Over the past few years, the number of entrepreneurial programs has grown tremendously, especially as universities recognize the value of interdisciplinary studies, says Franek. Arthur Warga, dean of the University of Houston’s C.T. Bauer College of Business, ranked as the No. 1 undergraduate program, says a full entrepreneurship program, rather than just a couple of classes, is vital to provide “a really comprehensive group of mentors and resources that they can turn to for advice during the process of building a business.” The Princeton Review’s list of the top 25 best graduate and undergraduate entrepreneurship programs: Top 25 graduate programs 1. Babson College , Wellesley, Mass. 2. The University of Chicago 3. University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, Mich. 4. Brigham Young University , Provo, Utah 5. University of Arizona , Tucson 6. Rice University , Houston 7. University of Virginia , Charlottesville, Va. 8. Stanford University , Stanford, Calif. 9. University of Texas at Austin 10. Washington University in St. Louis 11. Acton MBA Entrepreneurship, Austin, Texas 12. DePaul University , Chicago 13. Tulane University , New Orleans 14. University of Southern California , Los Angeles 15. Drexel University , Phildelphia 16. Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. 17. University of Washington , Seattle 18. Temple University , Philadelphia 19. University of Wisconsin-Madison 20. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 21. Syracuse University , Syracuse N.Y. 22. Simmons College , Boston 23. Wake Forest University , Winston Salem, N.C. 24. University of Illinois at Chicago 25. University of South Florida , Tampa Top 25 undergraduate programs 1. University of Houston , Houston, Texas 2. Baylor University , Waco, Texas 3. Babson College, Wellesley, Mass. 4. Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 5. University of Southern California, Los Angeles 6. University of Dayton , Dayton, Ohio 7. Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y. 8. University of Notre Dame , Notre Dame , Ind. 9. Washington University, St. Louis 10. DePaul University, Chicago 11. Xavier University , Cincinnati 12. University of Arizona, Tucson 13. Temple University, Philadelphia 14. Northeastern University , Boston 15. University of Oklahoma , Norman, Okla. 16. Lehigh University , Bethlehem, Pa. 17. City University of New York , New York 18. Belmont University , Nashville 19. Drexel University, Philadelphia 20. Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 21. The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Ala. 22. Loyola Marymount University , Los Angeles 23. University of Wisconsin-Madison 24. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 25. Chapman University , Orange, Calif.

ATLANTA (AP) — The University of Georgia won a national title this year — top party school. The Princeton Review announced Monday that Georgia is the No. 1 party school on its now infamous annual ranking. The school of about 30,000 students has been on the list 10 times since the ranking was created in 1992, but this is the first time the university has taken the top spot. For the campus — surrounded by nearly 100 bars in tiny downtown Athens — parties are just part of life from August to May each year. Many students gear up for the weekend on Thursdays and sometimes don’t rest until Monday morning. “That’s what people look forward to starting Thursday — Thursday night is the new Friday night,” said junior Andrew Chappell, 20. “The party atmosphere is such a big part of Georgia.” University of Georgia spokesman Tom Jackson said the list is not one the school wants to lead. He said he’d rather emphasize that the school made Princeton Review’s top 50 “Best Values” list or the “Green Honor Roll” of the most environmentally conscious campuses. BEST VALUE COLLEGES: Top 100 for 2010 PRINCETON REVIEW: 286 greenest colleges BEYOND RANKINGS: Scores on student engagement Georgia beat out Pennsylvania State University, West Virginia University and University of Florida — which were the top party schools over the last three years. Those three made the top 10 this year, while Ohio University ranked second. The ranking comes after several years of work by University of Georgia administrators to curb drinking on campus and tone down the party atmosphere. Since 2006 — when a student died of an overdose of alcohol, cocaine and heroin in his dorm room — university police have been hauling underage drinkers to jail rather than simply giving them a ticket. School administrators call parents on the first offense and suspend a student for two semesters after the second alcohol violation. “The University of Georgia takes student alcohol education programs very seriously and will continue to do so,” Jackson said. Those efforts weren’t helped when athletic director Damon Evans stepped down last month after being charged with drunken driving. Evans had appeared in a video message played before home football games urging Georgia fans not to drink and drive. The ranking is based on e-mail surveys of 122,000 students at more than 370 colleges across the country. It combines responses on alcohol and drug use on campus, hours spent studying outside class and the popularity of fraternities and sororities. The surveys are filled out voluntarily by students, and on average about 325 students from each campus respond, said Rob Franek, author of the 800-page book put out by Princeton Review each year with nearly 60 categories of rankings. Other rankings include best campus food, least accessible professors and most religious students. “I want to make sure we’re giving any college-bound student a very clear example of what life could be for them at any of the 373 schools in the book,” he said. Colleges dismiss the rankings as unscientific and complain that they glorify dangerous behavior. In advance of Monday’s announcement, University of Colorado President Bruce Benson sent a letter to the Boulder, Colo., Daily Camera newspaper criticizing Princeton Review and the rankings. “What I get really upset about is this is headline-grabbing, and it’s extremely unscientific,” Benson told the newspaper. His school ranked 16th on the party list this year and No. 1 in 2003. This year, Brigham Young University topped the list of “Stone-Cold Sober Schools” for the 13th straight year. The Princeton Review is a Massachusetts-based company known for its test preparation courses, educational services and books. It’s not affiliated with Princeton University. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.