CCNY remains one of the nation’s top schools, according to The Princeton Review®.
The City College of New York is one of the nation's academically best undergraduate institutions according to the education services company The Princeton Review®.
The company profiles The City College in the new edition of its annual college guide, The Best 392 Colleges (August 18, 2026, Penguin Random House) as well as its website feature about the book and the 50 categories of ranking lists in it.
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 at them. (Only about 14% of America’s nearly 2,800 four-year colleges are in the book.)
In The Princeton Review profile on CCNY, the company praises the school for its “strong STEM programs, diverse academic paths, and access to research labs and professors.” It quotes from CCNY students it surveyed for the project who described the college as having faculty with “extensive backgrounds or are currently practicing, [which] helps a lot with creating a realistic and driven academic experience.”
"We are delighted to name The City College of New York 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. "CCNY has outstanding academic programs, We also took into account the candid feedback we received about it from its very own customers—its enrolled students," he added.
The Best 392 Colleges has 50 categories of ranking lists. Each list names the top 25 schools (of those in the book) in a particular category. (The Princeton Review does not rank the schools hierarchically, on a single list from 1 to 392.)
The rankings are entirely based on company's surveys of students attending the schools in the book who reported on their campus experiences at their schools. Surveys of 172,000 students (about 439 per school on average) were tallied for the rankings in The Best 392 Colleges.
CCNY appears on the following ranking lists in The Best 392 Colleges:
• Best Value Colleges;
• Best Northeast;
• Green Colleges;
• The Best 392 Colleges; and
• Top 20 Best Schools for Making an Impact (Public Schools) at #13
Information on the methodology for the rankings and the student survey is published in the book and on The Princeton Review’s website here.
The Princeton Review also tallies ratings (scores from 60 to 99) of the schools in The Best 392 Colleges in eight categories. The ratings are primarily based on institutional survey data. A few ratings score tallies also factor in student survey data. The ratings are published in the profiles of the schools in the book as well as in the profiles on PrincetonReview.com.
CCNY received rating scores of 77/99 in the admissions category; 97/99 for fire safety; 80/99 for a green environment; 82/99 for financial aid; 73/99 for academics; 84/99 for interesting professors; 85/99 for accessibility to professors; and 82/99 for quality of life. Information on The Princeton Review college ratings may be found here.
Further information about The Princeton Review Best Colleges for 2027 project is posted on PrincetonReview.com.
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 (www.PrincetonReview.com), 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, NY, it is not affiliated with Princeton University, and it is not a magazine.
About The City College of New YorkSince 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high-quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its position at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. Education research organization Degree Choices ranks CCNY #1 nationally among universities for economic return on investment. In addition, the Center for World University Rankings places CCNY in the top 2.2% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. Labor analytics firm Lightcast puts at $3.7 billion CCNY’s annual economic impact on the regional economy (5 boroughs and 5 adjacent counties) and quantifies the “for dollar” return on investment to students, taxpayers, and society. At City College, more than 16,500 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity, and scholarship. In 2023, CCNY launched its most expansive fundraising campaign ever. The campaign, titled “Doing Remarkable Things Together,” seeks to bring the College’s Foundation to more than $1 billion in total assets in support of the College's mission. By May 2026, more than $500 million had been raised. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic, and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.
Jay Mwamba
p: 917.892.0374
e:
jmwamba@ccny.cuny.edu