Columbia finished first in a survey of the national news coverage of Ivy League schools and other highly visible private research universities, including Stanford, MIT and NYU.

The study, performed by the Burrelle's news clipping service, counted individual university mentions during the year 2000 in the 50 largest circulation newspapers, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post, and the three major news magazines, Time, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report.

Columbia, which also finished first in the last survey, which was done in 1997, had 8,927 mentions or about 130% of the total of Princeton, Brown and Dartmouth combined. Penn with 8,177 mentions moved into second place from third in the 1997 survey, and Harvard with 7,985 mentions fell from second in 1997 to third in 2000.

Burrelle's research department performed the study using Lexis-Nexis, Dow Interactive and Dialog. The study was purely quantitative and no attempt was made to evaluate types of stories that appeared.

"We commission these studies periodically to get a general idea of how we are faring with our peer institutions," said Associate Vice President for Public Affairs Virgil Renzulli. "For an office such as ours, which focuses on the quality rather than the quantity of news coverage, statistics of this sort are interesting but of limited value.

"We concentrate on getting stories about the progress the University is making, its new programs and facilities, and the accomplishments of its faculty and students rather than just having our name mentioned in the press. However, the magnitude of Columbia's coverage in this report is an indication that word of the University's achievements is getting out."