The Princeton Review names Carleton one of the nation’s Best Colleges for 2027, highlighting classroom experience, student community, and financial aid

Carleton is one of the nation’s best undergraduate institutions according to The Princeton Review’s new edition of its annual college guide, The Best 392 Colleges, with the College achieving Top-3, Top-5, Top-10, and Top-25 rankings in multiple categories.

“Carleton is a place for ‘genuine scholars,’” the guide reports, quoting student surveys, “who value a ‘very strong sense of community where your peers and teachers all want to support you and help you reach your fullest potential.’”

The Best 392 Colleges does not rank schools hierarchically on a single list; instead, it has 50 categories, with a ranking of the top 25 schools for each category. The rankings are entirely based on the company’s surveys of current students who reported on their campus experiences. Surveys of 172,000 students (about 439 per school on average) were tallied for this edition.

Carleton appears on more than 15 ranking lists in The Best 392 Colleges, with coverage ranging from the academic experience to campus operations to student culture and community.

Carleton is ranked #3 for Best Classroom Experience, #8 for Professors Get High Marks, and #18 for Most Accessible Professors, placing the College amongst the best for quality of teaching. Student surveys described Carleton professors as “absolutely phenomenal and… very dedicated.”

“I’ve had multiple professors who have been willing to give up time on weekends to discuss class work and… attend student events,” one student wrote.

The College is also ranked #8 for Best School for Financial Aid, #16 for Best Science Lab Facilities, and #19 for Best Health Services, showcasing just some of the breadth of support that Carls receive on campus outside of their professors.

Carleton students themselves are ranked #5 for Friendliest Students, #9 for Students Study the Most, and #18 for Their Students Love These Colleges. Surveyed students point out that Carls are known to “work hard and study frequently,” and challenge each other intellectually, in addition to being a community where students “feel comfortable, supported, and connected” on a campus “that truly feels like home.”

Carls are also ranked #22 for Most Politically Active Students and #15 for Most Politically Liberal Students, with one student writing that “the Carleton student body runs on the liberal side, but everyone is open to differing viewpoints, and no one criticizes others whose opinions may differ from their own.”

The College reached #10 in the category of Green Matters: Everyone Cares About Conservation and #25 in Great Outdoors: Students Get Outside. In addition to the College’s immense institutional commitment to sustainability, one student wrote that Carls spend “a lot of time outside, working, playing sports, and hanging out.”

The College’s “rich club culture” was cited as a positive experience by many students in their surveys. The student-run KRLX, for example, demonstrates this, with The Princeton Review rating it as the #3 Best College Radio Station in the nation.

Personal differences are also celebrated at Carleton, which contributes to the College’s #10 ranking in the LGBTQ-Friendly category.

“Carleton students are often described as quirky, and I think people have really embraced that,” one student wrote. “Being weird and being yourself are important.” Carls are “not afraid to be goofy or engage in any of our many ridiculous traditions,” another student added.

Students at Carleton tend to share one defining feature, according to The Princeton Review book editors:

“It might be a strange hobby, a niche academic passion, or just a funny little personality trait, but it’s something people embrace rather than hide,” one student wrote. “It creates a campus atmosphere where individuality feels normal and celebrated.”

As a result, students can “sit down in the dining hall or walk into a study space and end up in the most unexpected, interesting conversations — sometimes about classes, but just as often about random curiosities or big ideas,” another student added. “The student body is curious, open-minded, and excited to connect with one another.”

In addition to its ranked lists, The Princeton Review also tallies ratings with scores from 60 to 99 in eight categories. These ratings are primarily based on institutional survey data, with a few categories also factoring in student surveys.

Carleton received the top score of 99/99 in two categories, Financial Aid and Fire Safety, which places the College on The Princeton Review’s Financial Aid Honor Roll and Fire Safety Honor Roll.

Carleton was also in the top percentiles for the categories of Admissions (95/99), Academics (97/99), Interesting Professors (96/99), Professor Accessibility (96/99), and Quality of Life (90/99). Data was unavailable for the Green rating category, but student survey data contributed to Carleton’s spot at #10 on the Green Matters ranking list.

In addition to rankings and score categories, Carleton was named a Best Value College and Best in the Midwest by The Princeton Review.

“We are delighted to name Carleton one of our Best Colleges for 2027 and we recommend it to students searching for their ‘best-fit’ college,” said Rob Franek, The Princeton Review’s editor-in-chief and lead author of The Best 392 Colleges. “Carleton has outstanding academic programs. We also took into account the candid feedback we received from its very own customers — its enrolled students.”

The Best 392 Colleges is the 35th annual edition of The Princeton Review’s flagship college guide, which debuted in 1992. It is one of more than 150 Princeton Review books in a line published by Penguin Random House. The book and its annual student-survey-based college rankings have been featured on NBC TODAY more than two dozen times over the years and referenced by media from NPR to The Wall Street Journal and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The Princeton Review chose the 392 colleges for the book based on its surveys in 2025–2026 of 2,000 college administrators about their school’s academic offerings. The company also surveyed students attending the colleges in the book who rated their schools on dozens of topics and reported on their campus experiences. Only about 14 percent of America’s nearly 2,800 four-year colleges are in the book.

Information on the methodology for the rankings and the student survey is published in the book and on The Princeton Review’s website.

The Princeton Review, founded in 1981, is an education services company known for its tutoring, test-prep, admission services, school rankings, books, and other resources. Headquartered in New York, New York, it is not affiliated with Princeton University and it is not a magazine.