MA Colleges Make Several Top 20 Lists: Princeton Review

You don't need Princeton Review to tell you that many of the country's top colleges are right here in Massachusetts. Emerson, Boston University, Wellesley, Holy Cross - these aren't exactly hidden gems. But what Princeton Review can tell you is where these colleges excel and where they fall short.

Twenty-four Massachusetts schools made the Top 20 lists in The Princeton Review's 27th annual college rankings, released this week. Princeton Review asked 84 questions to 138,000 students across 384 top colleges to narrow down the 'best of' lists across 62 categories.

Scroll below to see every instance in which a Massachusetts school was mentioned in the rankings, and to see what local schools made the Best 384 Colleges list.

For the third straight year, UMass-Amherst topped a category - and it wasn't for partying (that would be the University of Delaware.) Instead, the home of the Minutemen was deemed the school with the "Best Campus Food" yet again. For what it's worth, Boston University was the only Massachusetts school ranked in the top 10 of "Lots Of Hard Liquor," coming in sixth.

What some may deem a more prestigious distinction belongs to Bentley University in Waltham, which has the most highly rated career center in the country in being named the school with the "Best Career Services."

Related:

Best Colleges In MA: Forbes

Best Colleges In MA: U.S. News & World

These MA Colleges Are Best Bang For Your Bucks: Forbes

If studying is your thing, check out the bookworms at Williams College. The Williamstown school was tops on the "Students Study The Most" list and second in "Most Accessible Professors."

Conversely, if you've taken to praying for good grades, Gordon College might be the place for you. The Wenham school led the "Most Religious Students" category.

Emerson College was No. 1 on the "LGBTQ-Friendly" list and was runner-up for "Best College Radio Station," but also ranked No. 2 "Students Study The Least" and No. 6 in "Financial Aid Not So Great."

Academics & Administration

• Suffolk University - 4th in Worst-Run Colleges (Administrators Get Low Marks)
• Worcester Polytechnic Institute - 5th in Best-Run Colleges
• University of Massachusetts Amherst - 15th in Least Accessible Professors
• Williams College - 2nd in Most Accessible Professors
• Bentley University, Northeastern University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Emerson College - 1st, 3rd, 5th and 9th in Best Career Services
• Mount Holyoke, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering and Williams College - 4th, 9th and 20th in Best Classroom Experience
• Mount Holyoke, Williams College - 8th and 16th in Best College Library
• None - Best Health Services
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Mount Holyoke College - 10th, 14th and 19th in Best Science Lab Facilities
• Emerson College, Suffolk University, UMass Amherst - 6th, 10th and 20th in Financial Aid Not-So-Great
• Williams College - 9th in Best Financial Aid
• None - Most Popular Study Abroad Program
• Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, Mount Holyoke, Wellesley College - 3rd, 6th and 14th in High Professor Ratings
• None - Low Professor Ratings
• Emerson, Becker College - 2nd and 5th in Students Study the Least
• Williams, Franklin W. Olin, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute - 1st, 6th and 18th in Students Study the Most
• Williams and Franklin W. Olin - 14th and 16th in School Spirit
• Emerson and Becker - 10th and 12th in Worst Library

Demographics

• Emerson - 4th in Least Religious Students
• Gordon College - 1st in Most Religious Students
• Emerson, Mount Holyoke, Franklin W. Olin and Clark University - 1st, 5th, 10th and 16th in LGBTQ-Friendly
• Gordon College - 7th in LGBTQ Unfriendly
• Amherst College - 11th in Little Race/Class Interaction
• Babson College, Wheaton College, Franklin W. Olin and Worcester Polytechnic Institute - 12th, 13th, 18th and 20th in Lots of Race/Class Interaction

Extracurriculars

• None - Best Athletic Facilities
• Brandeis - 13th in Best College Newspaper
• Emerson - 2nd in Best College Radio Station
• Emerson and Williams - 11th and 15th in Best College Theater
• Brandeis, Clark, Stonehill College - 5th, 13th and 20th in Students Most Engaged in Community Service
• None - Intramural Sports Participation
• Williams and Emerson - 12th and 20th in No Intramural Sports Participation
• None - Sports Events Attendance
• Brandeis, Franklin W. Olin and Emerson - 3rd, 9th and 19th in No Sports Events Attendance
• None - Most Active Student Government

Politics

• Assumption College, Gordon, Becker, UMass Amherst, WPI - 2nd, 7th, 10th, 15th and 16th in Lack of Political Awareness
• Williams - 7th in Most Politically Active
• None - in Most Conservative Students
• Brandeis University, Clark and Mount Holyoke - 10th, 12th and 18th in Most Liberal Students

Quality of Life

• UMass Amherst - 1st in Best Campus Food
• Bentley - 18th in Worst Food
• Franklin W. Olin and Williams- 7th and 14th in Best College Dorms
• None - Worst Dorms
• Franklin W. Olin - 15th in Best Quality of Life
• Franklin W. Olin and Clark - 11th and 18th in Happiest Students
• Simmons College - 2nd in Least Happy Students
• None - in Most Beautiful Campus
• Brandeis, Emerson, Becker and UMass Amherst - 9th, 14th, 17th, and 20th in Least Beautiful Campus

Schools by Type

• Emerson - 19th in Tree-Hugging Vegetarians
• Gordon - 16th in Future Rotarians and DAR
• None - Party Schools
• Gordon and Simmons College - 6th and 19th in Stone-Cold Sober Schools

Social Scene

• Gordon and Simmons - 15th and 19th in No Use Of Marijuana
• Emerson - 18th in Use Of Marijuana
• Gordon and Simmons - 10th and 20th in No Beer Consumption
• None - Beer Consumption
• None - Popularity of Greek Life
• Boston University, Bentley - 6th, 14th and in Consumption of Hard Liquor
• Gordon - 9th in No Consumption of Hard Liquor

Town Life

• Northeastern and Suffolk - 9th and 10th in Good College City
• Mount Holyoke - 18th in Bad College City
• None - Good Local Community Relationship
• None - Bad Local Community Relationship

The Massachusetts schools to make the the 'Best 384 Colleges' (in alphabetical order:)

• Amherst College
• UMass-Amherst
• Assumpton
• Babson
• Becker
• Bentley
• Boston College
• Boston University
• Brandeis
• Clark
• Emerson
• Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering
• Gordon
• Harvard
• Holy Cross
• MIT
• Mount Holyoke
• Northeastern
• Simmons
• Smith
• Stonehill
• Suffolk
• Tufts
• Wellesley
• Williams
• Wheaton
• WPI

If the top question on your mind is financial aid, consider checking out Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. The average undergraduate need-based scholarship grant there last year was $47,294. If class size and teacher quality is what you're banking on, try Reed College in Oregon, where most class sections have between 2-9 students.

"We picked the 384 'best colleges' for our book primarily for their outstanding academics; we highly recommend each one," said Robert Franek, The Princeton Review's Editor-in-Chief and the book's lead author. "However, we know applicants need far more than an academic rating or ranking to find the college that will be best for them. We created our 62 ranking lists to help narrow that search."

You can purchase the Princeton Review Best 384 Colleges book beginning today.

The list of every instance of a Massachusetts school being mentioned in a category is courtesy State House News Service.

Photo of Wellesley College taken by Dan Libon, Patch