Insidecollege.com, an online college guide featuring hundreds of specialized lists, has posted its rankings for 2009. The Web site helps students to “learn everything there is to know about colleges and universities across the country,” according to a press release.

Ohio State has made the cut for a number of the lists. Not surprisingly, OSU is on many of the sports lists, including “Best Sports Programs,” “Colleges Where Sports Rule,” and “Colleges with Strength in Football.”

Academically, OSU was mentioned on lists including: “Accredited Interior Design Colleges,” “Colleges with Excellent Fashion Programs,” and “Colleges with Fine Programs in Computer Animation.”

OSU also made the list of underrated schools.

“OSU has a lot of good resident scholars and a good job placement program,” said Mark Benver, a fourth-year in political science.

Insidecollege.com is a site affiliated with Alloy Education. Alloy Education has provided many educational publications, including Private Colleges and Universities magazine, Careers and Colleges magazine and Porter Sargent Handbooks.

The rankings were originally compiled by Steven Antonoff, an education consultant in Denver who teamed up with Alloy Education to make the lists. High school counselors, admission representatives, educational planners and other professionals in the education industry have provided lists dealing with specialized
areas such as financial aid.

“I was surprised on some of them,” said Adam Zehner, a second-year in industrial design.

OSU was named one of the ten schools to have radically innovative engineering programs.

“It’s good to see Ohio State compared with schools like MIT,” Zehner said.

OSU also made it onto some fun lists, like “Colleges with Plenty of Campus Spirit,” “Colleges with Great Food,” as well as the list of “The Happy Colleges.”

The new William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library was acknowledged on the site as well. The library was named to the list of the best college libraries. Zehner believes that the library’s spot on the list is well deserved.

“I’ve never seen it before the renovation,” he said. “But it’s now the best library I’ve ever seen and it deserves to be ranked among the best.”