Nice Campus, but Which Way’s the Beach?

Is there a (future) doctor in your house? Or a lawyer or an MBA?

Well, it’s never too early to start thinking about grad school, and the Kaplan Educational Centers (best known for those courses promising to boost entrance test scores) have teamed with Simon & Schuster to publish a trio of books whose yardsticks for rating schools include the oft-ignored “fun factor.”

That is: Which schools are closest to beaches, great skiing, great roller coasters, great shopping malls, great sports, great microbreweries?

“The Insider’s Book of Medical School Lists,” “The Insider’s Book of Law School Lists” and “The Insider’s Book of Business School Lists” ($12 each) were written with tongue firmly in cheek by Mark Baker. Still, as Baker notes: “These details of life and education are not to be sniffed at.”

We get the schools with the most eligible men and women, the most “old fogies” (students 29 and older), the best and worst weather. Baker thinks there’s a campus for everyone, including those who “think plastic pocket protectors are a fashion statement.”

For “those who hated school until now,” there’s a list of law schools (Whittier, among them) that will accept a GPA below 3.0. For those “who can’t take rejection,” Baker suggests a law school that accepts more than half of applicants (California Western, University of the Pacific). Seeking “snob appeal”? Both Stanford’s and UC Berkeley’s accept less than 20% of applicants.

There are schools for those who “love Newt and the National Rifle Assn.” (Pepperdine, UC Davis, Loyola Marymount). And schools in states with good unemployment benefits--just in case things don’t work out. (Massachusetts is tops at $217 a week, California near the bottom at $131.)

Seeking status by association? The majority of current Supreme Court justices went to Harvard, as did most of the Fortune 500 CEOs. The University of Chicago has the most Nobel Prize winners in economics--so many, Baker notes, that “they probably have a secret handshake.” Harvard can claim the most Nobel laureates in medicine.

Those hoping to pay back those student loans in a hurry will want to know that UCLA, USC, UC Berkeley and Loyola Marymount place the most law students with private firms right after graduation. Yale graduates get the highest average starting salary ($83,000), while USC’s and UCLA’s can boast a not-too-shabby $70,000.

For MBAs, UCLA gets high marks for post-graduate job placement at 98%, with Cal State L.A. and Claremont Graduate School not far behind. Columbia’s MBAs start out at $91,000 on average, UCLA’s, at $69,000--first and 10th places, respectively.

Toughest medical school to get into? UC San Diego. Medical school with the greatest snob appeal? Boston University, which, Baker reports, takes only 149 of 11,586 hopefuls. In the “doctor as mad scientist” category (best schools for medical research), Stanford, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC San Diego and USC all score well.