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
| 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 |
Created with the HTML Table Generator
Source: The Princeton Review
DON’T MISS: Universities With The Most Conservative Students or Universities With The Most Liberal Students
