The Princeton Review "surveyed 50 collegiate game design programs in order to handpick the best schools you should attend if you're interested in going into game development" (so sayeth GamePro magazine, who published the results), and of these 50 American and Canadian undergraduate programs GAMBIT came in 8th! This is particularly awesome since, as GamePro also notes, "MIT doesn't offer a game-specific degree; it only has degrees in disciplines like computer science and media studies. Through these programs, however, students can access the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab to work with other schools in collaboration to create games."

The complete Top 8 list is as follows:

• University of Southern California, Interactive Media Division
• DigiPen Institute of Technology
• Drexel University, RePlay (Digital Media & Computer Science)
• Becker College, Game Design and Game Programming
• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Games and Simulation Arts and Sciences
• The Art Institute of Vancouver, Game Art & Design/Visual & Games Programming
• Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Interactive Media and Game Development (IMGD)
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab

More information on the survey is available in an article at USAToday.com:

"Our core mission is providing parents and students with good admission advice," says David Soto, director of content development at The Princeton Review. "We're hoping this can add legitimacy to an emerging market."

In all, The Princeton Review surveyed 500 schools before arriving at its top 50 with game design studies.

Programs were evaluated on four main criteria: academics (courses and skills fostered), faculty (especially the percentage who had worked in the industry), infrastructure (technology and game laboratories) and career (internships, job placement). "The schools that scored exceptionally well, the top eight, were really top-notch when it came to all four," he says.

Congratulations to our fellow Top 8, and also to the others listed on the complete Top 50 Undergraduate Game Design Programs list at The Princeton Review. To be included among such awesome programs is an honor – and it's exciting to see game design thriving as an academic program!