The Best 386 Colleges, 2021 Edition The Princeton Review
Hi, everyone.
I’m Rob Franek, Editor-in-Chief at The Princeton Review, and this is the week we look forward
to all year: We launched the 29th edition of our book and rankings for The Best 386
Colleges, 2021 Edition, published by our colleagues at Penguin Random House.
As we’ve talked about before, the very best thing you can do to ensure that you get accepted
to your dream college—and then have a great experience once you get there—is to look
for fit.
There is no #1 school that would be #1 for everyone.
And if you are looking for that #1 overall school, you may end up bypassing the school
that’s really your #1 college.
How do you know what that is?
There are schools that have the academic programs, extracurricular offerings, campus communities,
and values that make them a great fit for you.
And that’s what the book—and our vision of college admission—is all about.
It’s also why we don’t have one list that ranks schools from 1 to 100 or even to 500,
as some lists do.
Instead, we have 62 ranking lists of the top 20 schools across a range of categories, including
academics, financial aid, campus life, extracurriculars, social scene, and politics.
Each school featured in the book has a 2-page profile with info that you won’t find anywhere
else—including our “Inside Word” on their admissions, Financial Aid rating, and
direct quotes from students.
Speaking of students—here’s another thing that’s different about our approach: We
ask students about their college experiences on campus.
So our rankings aren’t based on our opinions—they’re based on the perspectives of their own students—143,000
of them at the 386 colleges in the book.
We asked students 85 questions, and they rated everything from their professors to career
services to their college towns, and reported on their campus experiences at their schools.
And our 62 ranking lists report on what they said.
So what did they say?
Well, a lot of families are stressed about finances—now more than ever.
When we reported on our survey of nearly 13,000 parents and students about their biggest college
hopes and worries back in March—can you guess what their biggest worry was?
For the 8th year running, it was the level of debt to pay for the degree.
The Best 386 Colleges includes a Financial Aid Rating score for every single school in
the book, along with intel about the average dollar amounts of grant aid that each school
provides.
We’ve also got a list of Best Value Colleges that tells you where you’ll get the biggest
return on your tuition investment—in terms of a wide range of factors, from academics,
costs, financial aid, and debt—to graduation rates as well as alumni career and salary
data.
You can find all of this info in our book and on our website, PrincetonReview.com.
When we were doing our homework for Best 386 Colleges, we asked students about their overall
satisfaction with their financial aid packages.
Do you know what the #1 school this year is?
Vanderbilt University—where the *average* undergraduate need-based scholarship is $52,200.
Vanderbilt also earned high rankings in a bunch of categories, including its college
city of Nashville, school newspaper, science labs, and library.
We have a list called “Their Students Love These Colleges,” and Vanderbilt earned the
#1 spot on that, as well.
Let’s talk about another #1 school.
Right now, as online and hybrid learning become the status quo for the foreseeable future,
lots of students—and non-students—are struggling with feelings of isolation.
Access to mental healthcare is more important than ever.
This year, for the first time, we have a ranking list featuring Counseling Services.
The top-ranked school on that list is...Virginia Tech.
Virginia Tech’s Cook Counseling Center offers individual as well as group counseling, psychiatric
care and psychotherapy, and educational programming.
The school wants to make sure that every student who needs it will have access to support.
Like Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech also earned a top spot on our lists for great town-gown
relations and campus food—and of course, on “Their Students Love These Colleges.”
What do students love?
The administration, career services, the labs, recreation facilities—they love being part
of the Hokie Nation.
So far, we’ve talked about what students and families are worried about: They’re
worried about money, they’re worried about healthcare, and mental healthcare in particular.
But when you think about what makes college worth it, you probably imagine amazing professors
and stellar career opportunities.
So I want to take just a moment to highlight schools that earned the top spots on those
ranking lists, according to their students.
We have a ranking list called “Professors Get High Marks,” and topping that list is
Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts.
One student wrote that the professors are “wonderful scholars and wonderful people.”
Another told us that they provide hands-on lab experience as well as real-world scenarios
and creative teaching exercises.
And they appreciate that their professors “prioritize their students above all else.”
Their professors’ skills as teachers will be especially important this fall, when instruction—whether
it’s in the classroom or online—will be unusual: socially distanced, with fewer in-person
opportunities.
Having professors who know how to connect with students will be more important than
ever.
Another thing that’s really important is launching a career after graduation—and
Bentley University just outside of Boston earned the #1 spot on our Best Career Services
ranking list.
Bentley’s award-winning career development team works with students individually to evaluate
their interests and skills, set goals, and of course to help them achieve those goals,
from finding internships to acing interviews and ultimately landing awesome jobs after
graduation.
In a challenging economy, those services will be more important than ever.
Check out our website to see all of our Best 386 Colleges, and to do a customized college
search, where you put in the criteria that matter most to you—from location to available
majors to extracurriculars to any one of our 62 ranking lists—and find schools that could
be your great fit.
And of course, please subscribe to our channel for the latest updates about college admissions,
standardized tests, twice-weekly SAT and ACT prep livestreams, and more.
See you here next time.