The Princeton Review Releases Its “Best Colleges for 2027”

Editorial Staff

The Princeton Review^®—one of the nation’s leading education services companies—has unveiled its annual “Best Colleges” rankings.

The company’s 50 categories of Best Colleges for 2027 rankings are posted on PrincetonReview.com where they are searchable for free. They are also published in a 25-page chapter of The Best 392 Colleges: 2027 Edition (Penguin Random House, $26.99) which is on sale now.

The Princeton Review ranking lists focus on subjects that college applicants and their parents might ask (or wish they could ask) current enrollees at a school.

The lists provide feedback about the schools’ academics, administrative services, financial aid, and campus amenities as well as insights into student body social life, political leanings, sports interests, race/class interaction, LGBTQ community acceptance, and more.

The 50 ranking lists reported today are entirely based on data from the company’s surveys of 172,000 students at the 392 schools in the book (about 439 students per school on average). The 98-question survey asked them to rate their colleges on dozens of topics and report on their campus experiences at them. Each ranking list names the top 25 schools (of the 392 in the book) in a specific category using data from one or more student survey question.

Key Categories

Professors Get High Marks — Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering (MA)
Best Classroom Experience — Reed College (OR)
Best-Run Colleges — Claremont McKenna College (CA)
Great Financial Aid — Washington and Lee University (VA)
Best Career Services — Bentley University (MA)
Best Health Services —The University of Chicago (IL)
Best Student Support and Counseling Services—Macalester College (MN)
Best Campus Food — University of Massachusetts—Amherst
Best College Dorms — Bowdoin College (ME)
Most Beautiful Campus — University of San Diego (CA)
College City Gets High Marks — Columbia University (NY)
Most Politically Conservative Students —Texas Christian University
Most Politically Liberal Students — Bennington College (VT)
Most Politically Moderate Students — Manhattan University (NY)
Most Religious Students — Brigham Young University (UT)
LGBTQ-Friendly — University of Vermont
Lots of Race/Class Interaction — Rice University (TX)
Friendliest Students — William & Mary (VA)
Happiest Students —Vanderbilt University (TN)
Great Outdoors: Students Get Outside (new ranking list in the book) —The University of the South (TN)

In The Best 392 Colleges, The Princeton Review also shines a light on colleges in the book with interesting distinctions based on the company’s survey of college administrators for the project. In a feature titled Statistical Stand-Out Schools for 2027, some of the distinctions and the colleges named as “stand-outs” for them are:

Lowest Tuition & Fees (In-State) / Public College — University of Central Florida ($5,954)
Highest Average Need-Based Scholarships — Princeton University (NJ) ($80,837)
Lowest Student/Faculty Ratio — California Institute of Technology (3:1) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (3:1)
Lowest Average Undergraduate Debt — City University of New York: City College ($7,849)
Most Applications / Public College — University of California—Los Angeles (145,086)
Most Applications / Private College — New York University (114,125)

“The colleges we profile in The Best 392 Colleges vary by type, size, locale, and campus culture. In our opinion, each one offers an academically outstanding undergraduate education,” said Rob Franek, lead author of the book and Editor-in-Chief at The Princeton Review. “They are truly a select group: they comprise only about 14% of America’s nearly 2,800 four-year colleges.”

“The colleges that make our ranking lists in the book do so entirely as a result of their own students’ opinions of them,” Franek added. “We don’t rank the schools on a single hierarchical list, nor have we ever crowned one college ‘best’ overall. No school is best overall. For 35 years, our goal for this project has been to create multiple ranking lists and resources to help college applicants answer what is likely the toughest but also the most important question in their journey to college: ‘Which college is best for me?’”

To view the complete rankings, click here.