Four Worcester colleges have landed in The Princeton Review’s annual guide to what it considers the nation’s top undergraduate institutions, putting Assumption University, Clark University, College of the Holy Cross and Worcester Polytechnic Institute among 392 schools selected for the 2027 edition.
The Princeton Review does not rank the 392 colleges from best to worst…or best to least best. Instead, the education services company selects schools for inclusion in its flagship guide and separately ranks colleges in dozens of categories based largely on surveys of students.
The Worcester schools are among about 14% of the nation’s nearly 2,800 four-year colleges included in “The Best 392 Colleges: 2027 Edition,” according to The Princeton Review. The company says schools are selected primarily based on its assessment of their academics, drawing on institutional data, information collected from administrators and students and the opinions of its college experts.
The four Worcester institutions are the only city schools included in this year’s 392-school guide, according to The Princeton Review’s Massachusetts listings.
From that group, The Princeton Review produces 50 separate ranking lists covering areas ranging from academics and financial aid to campus life and student services. Those rankings are based entirely on responses from 172,000 students at the 392 schools, an average of about 439 students per institution. Each category names 25 schools. Pasted markdown
Clark and WPI picked up some of Worcester’s more prominent additional distinctions.
Clark was named a Best Value College and one of the Best in the Northeast. It also ranked No. 7 nationally for undergraduate game design, No. 3 in the Northeast for game design and No. 16 among private colleges on The Princeton Review’s list of Best Schools for Making an Impact.
The university also received recognition this month from Niche, another college search and review platform. Niche ranked Clark seventh among small colleges in Massachusetts, in the top 8% of small colleges nationally and in the top 13% of private universities nationwide. Clark also ranked No. 90 among 1,482 schools evaluated by Niche for the quality of their professors, according to the university.
Lukman Arsalan, Clark’s vice president of university enrollment, said in the university’s announcement that rankings are useful but do not tell the entire story of a college.
“Rankings are meaningful, but the most powerful measure of a university is what its students say about the education and community they experience,” Arsalan said. “To hear Clark students describe professors who know their names, a community where they feel they belong, and an education that prepares them to make an impact is the strongest testament to the enduring value of a Clark education.”
WPI also earned a place on The Princeton Review’s Best Value Colleges list and was named among the Best in the Northeast and Colleges That Create Futures. The university was included on the company’s 2026 Mental Health Services Honor Roll as well.
Among The Princeton Review’s student-survey rankings, WPI placed No. 20 for intramural sports, No. 23 for race and class interaction and No. 24 for student support and counseling services. It also ranked No. 13 nationally and No. 5 in the Northeast for undergraduate game design, according to its Princeton Review profile.
Assumption University was named to both the Best 392 Colleges and Best in the Northeast lists. The university highlighted its student experience in announcing the recognition, including an 11-to-1 student-to-faculty ratio and average class size of 18.
Students surveyed by The Princeton Review described Assumption professors as accessible and invested in their students, according to the university’s announcement. The university received a 94 out of 99 rating for professor accessibility, along with a 91 for financial aid and 88 for quality of life.
Holy Cross likewise appears among The Princeton Review’s Best 392 Colleges and Best in the Northeast. The college also appears on the company’s Green Colleges list, which recognizes institutions for their sustainability-related policies, practices and programs. The Princeton Review
The Princeton Review’s approach differs from college rankings that place institutions into a single numerical order. The 392 schools in the guide are presented without an overall ranking, while its individual top-25 lists are based on student responses to a 98-question survey covering academics, campus life, administration, financial aid and other aspects of the college experience. The Princeton Review
“The colleges we profile in ‘The Best 392 Colleges’ vary by type, size, locale, and campus culture,” Rob Franek, the guide’s lead author and editor-in-chief of The Princeton Review, said in the company’s announcement. “In our opinion, each one offers an academically outstanding undergraduate education.” Pasted markdown
The company has published its best colleges guide annually since 1992. This year’s 896-page edition, released in August, is its 35th.
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