Most popular colleges on Facebook
Time is running out for high school seniors to lock-in on a college. Yet another factor to consider: How many friends or fans does a college have on Facebook?
No one likes a Facebook loner.
Some perspective: Lady Gaga has a following of 6.6 million. Beer pong is liked by 950,350. Harvard, the birthplace of Facebook, has 33,986 fans. (So, Rice the university shouldn't feel bad that it's less popular than rice the food.)
So, here's the list with counts as of this weekend. Only official university pages and groups count -- no alumni, class of whatever, athletic, club or other groups. And no adding numbers from different groups together!
Please help me complete the list. Shoot me an e-mail and let me know what schools to add. And please let me know if I got a count completely wrong.
UPDATE: I am constantly updating this list as people flag more colleges (and I learn to better navigate Facebook's pages and groups).
Texas A&M 174,644
The University of Texas at Austin 112,774
University of Michigan 107,793
Penn State 101,765
University of Kansas 81,361
Ohio State University 70,588
West Virginia University 60,829
[Julia Allison (Georgetown grad & socialite) 60,476]
Stanford 59,748
Michigan State 53,991
Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar 51,774
[Washington Post 46,340]
Auburn 46,056
UCLA 44,586
[Rice (The Food) 42,599]
University of Miami 39,000
Purdue 37,367
Harvard 33,986
Virginia Tech 30,453
[Pirates 30,347]
Virginia Commonwealth University 30,206
George Mason 28,826
[Skydiving 28,567]
UC-Berkeley 28,216
Kansas State 27,353
University of Washington 26,486
Duke 25,940
University of Virginia 23,094
University of Maryland 20,649
Arizona State University 19,776
University of Illinois 19,662
University of Notre Dame 18,273
NYU 17,774
[Socks 16,034]
UC-Davis 15,755
Syracuse 15,537
College of William & Mary 15,153
[Friends with Benefits 13,433]
Vanderbilt 14,373
Princeton 14,130
[Snowshoeing 14,117]
[IKEA meatballs 13,367]
University of Southern California 13,012
Georgetown 13,050
James Madison University 12,930
UC-Santa Barbara 12,594
Northwestern 11,759
Carnegie Mellon 11,730
Boston College 11,377
University of Chicago 11,147
University of Pennsylvania 11,021
Brown 10,051
Yale University 9,990
Boston University 9,673
UC-Santa Cruz 9,607
MIT 8,553
American 8,539
Johns Hopkins 8,449
George Washington University 8,296
[Power Rangers 8,178]
Washington State University 7,970
UC-Irvine 7,425
Washington University in St. Louis 7,261
Columbia 6,634
Tufts 6,106
UC-Riverside 5,933
Emory 5,640
Dartmouth College 5,509
Rice (The University) 5,254
Kutztown University (Pennsylvania) 5,168
UC-San Diego 4,005
Fordham 3,828
Brandeis 3,364
UC-San Diego 3,237
[Sexting 3,187]
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 3,102
California Institute of Technology 2,754
[Campus Overload 193]
I Like :D
