The Princeton Review: 2015 Rankings

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The Princeton Review’s 2015 college rankings are out! Listing the top 20 colleges in 62 categories – from best campus food, to best classroom experience, to least happy students – The Princeton Review tallied this year’s scores by surveying 130,000 students at 379 top schools.

The winners include Syracuse University, which is now the No. 1 party school of 2015. George Washington University has the most politically active students, Bard College has the best classroom experience, and Vanderbilt University is home to the happiest students.

Unsurprisingly, lists of the most liberal students and the most conservative students did not change significantly from previous years. In fact, the liberal list names eight schools that have made the ranking every year since 2010, and there were no schools that haven’t ranked at least once recently. For the conservatives, there were two newcomers – Wofford College and Gordon College. However, 11 of the listed schools, which is more than half of them, have been there every year.

There is some debate over whether these rankings are a positive resource for incoming college students. According to an American Educational Research Association study from earlier this year, rankings like these can significantly affect the application rates to listed schools. For example, the study found that being listed among the “Top 20 Schools with the Least Happy Students” can result in a 5% decrease in applications the following year – quite an impact for a list made from the simple survey question: “Overall how happy are you?”

On the other hand, these rankings address aspects of the university that incoming students won’t find in the pamphlets. No school is going to officially advertise itself as having a student body that likes hard liquor. But with The Princeton Review on hand, incoming students can either seek out or avoid the University of Iowa and Syracuse University, depending on their attitude toward alcohol.

Below is a list of each category’s No. 1 school:

The Princeton Review’s No. 1 Schools

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Category No. 1 School
 Professors Get High Marks  Reed College
 Professors Get Low Marks  New Jersey Institute of Technology
 Students Study the Most  Harvey Mudd College
 Students Study the Least  Monmouth University (NJ)
 Most Accessible Professors  United States Military Academy
 Least Accessible Professors  McGill University
 Best College Library  University of Chicago
 This is a Library?  Clarkson University
 Great Financial Aid  Pomona College
 Financial Aid Not So Great  Spelman College
 Best Run Colleges  Elon University
 Administrators Get Low Marks  United States Merchant Marine Academy
 Best Science Lab Facilities  California Institute of Technology
 Most Popular Study Abroad Program  Goucher College
 Best Classroom Experience  Bard College
 Best Career Services  Northeastern University
 Best Health Services  Pennsylvania State University – University Park
 Their Students Love These Colleges  Claremont McKenna College
 Lots of Race/Class Interaction  George Mason University
 Little Race/Class Interaction  Furman University
 Most Religious Students  Brigham Young University (UT)
 Least Religious Students  Vassar College
 LGBT-Friendly  Stanford University
 LGBT-Unfriendly  College of the Ozarks
 Town-Gown Relations are Great  Clemson University
 Town-Gown Relations are Strained  Trinity College (CT)
 College City Gets High Marks  Boston University
 College City Gets Low Marks  New Jersey Institute of Technology
 Party Schools  Syracuse University
 Stone-Cold-Sober Schools  Brigham Young University (UT)
 Birkenstock-Wearing, Tree-Hugging, Clove-Smoking Vegetarians  Skidmore College
 Future Rotarians and Daughters of the American Revolution  Grove City College
 Jock Schools  Auburn University
 Most Politically Active Students  The George Washington University
 Election? What Election?  Ohio Northern University
 Most Liberal Students  Sarah Lawrence College
 Most Conservative Students  Texas A&M University – College Station
 Happiest Students  Vanderbilt University
 Least Happy Students  Marywood University
 Best Campus Food  Virginia Tech
 Is It Food?  United States Merchant Marine Academy
 Best College Dorm  Washington University in St. Louis
 Is that a Dorm?  United States Merchant Marine Academy
 Most Beautiful Campus  Colgate University
 Least Beautiful Campus  University of Dallas
 Best Quality of Life  Bowdoin College
 Easiest Campus to Get Around  Wabash College
 Everyone Plays Intramural Sports  United States Military Academy
 Nobody Plays Intramural Sports  College of the Atlantic
 Students Pack the Stadium  University of Kansas
 There’s a Game?  Bennington College
 Best College Radio  Hofstra University
 Best College Newspaper  Yale University
 Best College Theater  Wagner College
 Best Athletic Facilities  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
 Reefer Madness  Skidmore College
 Don’t Inhale  United States Coast Guard Academy
 Lots of Hard Liquor  University of Iowa
 Scotch and Soda, Hold the Scotch  Brigham Young University (UT)
 Lots of Beer  Pennsylvania State University – University Park
 Got Milk?  Brigham Young University (UT)
 Lots of Greek Life  Transylvania University

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Source: The Princeton Review

DON’T MISS: Universities With The Most Conservative Students or Universities With The Most Liberal Students

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