8-22-2025 4:34am

Goucher & Loyola

11 MD Schools Named To Princeton Review's Best Colleges List

The list is designed to help guide Marylanders making college choices to institutions that best fit their academic and personal needs.

Princeton College Review just released its ranking of the 391 best colleges in America, and 11 are in Maryland.

The schools on the 2026 Best Colleges list aren’t ranked; however, the top 25 colleges were ranked in 50 categories designed to help guide those making college choices to institutions that best fit their academic and personal needs.

They are also published in The Best 391 Colleges: 2026 Edition (Penguin Random House, $26.99), which went on sale Tuesday.

According to the rankings, the best schools in Maryland are:

Goucher College, Baltimore
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
Loyola University Maryland, Baltimore
McDaniel College, Westminster
Salisbury University, Salisbury
St. John's College, Annapolis
St. Mary's College of Maryland, St. Mary’s City
United States Naval Academy, Annapolis
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
University of Maryland, College Park
Washington College, Chestertown

All the ranking lists are based on The Princeton Review’s surveys of students attending the schools in the book who rate their colleges on dozens of topics and report on their campus experiences at them. The rankings are based on data from the company's surveys of 170,000 students at the 391 schools in the book (about 435 per school on average). The surveys were conducted in 2024–25 and/or the previous two academic years.

The rankings are based entirely on students’ opinions of them, Rob Franek, The Princeton Review’s editor-in-chief and the book’s lead author, said in a news release.

“We don’t rank colleges based on our opinion of them, nor would we crown a school ‘best’ overall. It is what the students attending the colleges in this book tell us about their experiences at their schools that determines on which lists the schools appear in our book.”

A new ranking list — Most Politically Moderate Students — was added to the project this year in consideration of the rising political polarization in the country. It, as well as two related lists that have long been in the book — Most Politically Liberal Students and Most Politically Conservative Students — is based on a survey question that asks students their assessment of their personal political views.

The summaries below reveal the top colleges on the various lists, as well as the top colleges in other high-interest categories. It’s only available in the book, so delete the ones that don’t apply.

Among colleges from Maryland that topped their respective lists are:

Least Politically Active Students - No. 1: Salisbury University
Pots Not Hot (Least Marijuana Usage) - No. 1: United States Naval Academy
Top Mid-Atlantic Entrepreneurship (Undergrad) - No. 1: University of Maryland, College Park

A special feature in the new edition of the book identifies colleges in the book with compelling distinctions based on data from The Princeton Review's institutional survey for the project. Among them are:

Highest Average Need-Based Scholarships — $74,113 / Williams College (MA)
Lowest Public School In-state Tuition & Fees — $6,368 / University of South Florida
Lowest Average Undergraduate Debt — $7,242 / City University of New York: City College
Most Diverse Student Body — City University of New York: Brooklyn College

“The colleges we profile in our 'Best Colleges' book are a truly select group. They constitute only about 15 percent of America's nearly 2,400 four-year institutions,” Franek said. “While they vary by locale, type, size, and campus culture, each one offers its students an academically outstanding undergraduate education. In our opinion, they are the nation's best undergraduate colleges and ideal choices for students seeking their ‘best-fit’ college.”