Copenhagen: Solution

Each word (except the first few) clues a pair of letters adjacent in the alphabet. After grouping the pairs by whether they're in forward or reverse alphabetical order, reading down suitably chosen columns gives "MORE THAN JUST COIN".

    IAP
    GUIDE
    SAYS
NM  NANOMETER
    FLIP-FLOP  JK
PO  BOX
    TAN        UV
    CANONIZED  ST
SR  SENIOR
    WEEKDAY    TU
FE  IRON
    BRUNSWICK  BC
UT  DO
    NORWAY     NO
IH  TFP
BA  BOEING
    HAWAII     HI
ON  BAALBEK
    MINNESOTA  MN

The first few words in the puzzle hint to look in the MIT IAP Guide. The relevant sentence from the description in the "Umpteenth Annual MIT Mystery Hunt" entry in the 1999 IAP Guide is: "And why does it seem like the loot is more than just the coin?"

So the answer is LOOT.