Many schools on the magazine's top 50 list are not historically black institutions

(CNN) -- College-bound African-Americans, looking for guidance in selecting the right school, got some help Tuesday when Black Enterprise magazine released its first list of the 50 best schools for African Americans.

The list was released at a news conference, and will appear in the January 1999 issue that hits newsstands at the end of December.

The magazine touts schools that provide the best academic and social environments for black students, based on interviews with more than 500 African-American professionals in the field of higher education.

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Where are Black Enterprise magazine's choices of the best colleges and universities for African-American students? Find out here.

Spelman College, Morehouse College and Clark Atlanta University, three of the top five colleges for African-American students, are in Atlanta. The other two are Florida A&M University in Tallahassee and Howard University in Washington, D.C.

Many of the schools favored by the magazine are not historically black institutions. Vassar College and Harvard University made the list, along with Emory and Johns Hopkins universities. Stanford University came in 10th.

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Walter Massey, Morehouse president, said several factors make these schools stand out.

"One, they are schools that make the students feel comfortable. They create an environment where they feel they can be themselves," Massey explained. "Secondly, they are schools that, again, have established over the years that their graduates are competitive in whatever field they go into."

Most of the schools are located in the eastern half of the United States. Only three of the top 50 are in the West, and all of them are in California.