Illinois Colleges Make Princeton Review’s 2027 Best List

Eleven colleges in the Prairie State are among the nation’s best, according to The Princeton Review’s newly released 2027 college guide. Last year, a dozen Illinois schools made the cut.

The education services company included 392 schools nationwide in its annual Best Colleges guide. Unlike some college rankings, The Princeton Review does not rank the schools from No. 1 through No. 392. Instead, it selects colleges it considers academically outstanding and separately ranks the top 25 schools in 50 categories based largely on what students say about their own campuses.

The Illinois schools included among the Best 392 Colleges are:

• Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago
• DePaul University, Chicago
• The University of Chicago, Chicago
• Northwestern University, Evanston
• Wheaton College, Wheaton
• Lake Forest College, Lake Forest
• University of St. Francis, Joliet
• Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington
• Bradley University, Peoria
• University of Illinois at Urbana, Champaign
• Knox College, Galesburg

Several Illinois colleges placed among the top 25 nationally in individual categories.

The University of Chicago ranked No. 1 for best health services, and ranked well in many other categories, including No. 4 for best college libraries, No. 7 for best college dorms and No. 23 for most beautiful campus.

Lake Forest College also made the list for best health services, coming in at No. 11.

The 2027 rankings, released Aug. 18, are based on surveys of 172,000 students at the 392 colleges, or about 439 students per school on average. Students answered 98 questions about academics and administration, campus life, their fellow students and their own experiences. Each of the 50 ranking lists names the top 25 schools in that category.

Among the national No. 1 schools, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts received the highest marks for professors; Reed College in Oregon ranked first for classroom experience; Claremont McKenna College in California was rated the best-run college; Washington and Lee University in Virginia topped the financial aid category; and Bentley University in Massachusetts ranked first for career services.

The University of Chicago ranked first for health services, Macalester College in Minnesota for student support and counseling services, the University of Massachusetts Amherst for campus food and the University of San Diego for the most beautiful campus. Vanderbilt University in Tennessee had the happiest students, according to the survey.

The guide also identifies what The Princeton Review calls “statistical stand-outs,” using information supplied by college administrators. Princeton University reported the highest average need-based scholarship, at $80,837, while the California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology shared the lowest student-faculty ratio at 3-to-1. The University of Central Florida had the lowest in-state tuition and fees among public colleges on the list, at $5,954.

The Princeton Review said the 392 featured colleges represent about 14 percent of the roughly 2,800 four-year colleges in the United States. The company said inclusion in the guide is based on assessments by its college experts along with surveys of college administrators and students.

The Princeton Review is not affiliated with Princeton University.

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