BYU ranked first on Princeton Review’s “Cancel the Keg” list for the second time in three years, according to Tuesday’s release of the company’s new edition of “The Best 390 Colleges.”
BYU also finished first for best library and landed on 14 other lists based on surveys of 168,000 students by the Princeton Review. University of Utah students rated themselves the second-least politically active students and fifth for best athletic facilities.
All of the rankings that include BYU and Utah are listed below.
The “Cancel the Keg” category is based on student responses to the question, “How widely is beer used at your school?”
“The Best 390 Colleges” is designed to help students learn more about schools they are considering for higher education. The book profiles each of the schools and includes data provided by the colleges and universities and lists based on data and analysis.
The college guide also annually asks students to rate their colleges on dozens of topics and report on their experiences at them. The Princeton Review uses the 89-question survey to rank colleges and universities in categories like financial aid, campus food and friendliest students.
“The colleges we profile in our book are truly a select group: they constitute about 15% of America’s four-year institutions,” Princeton Review editor-in-chief Rob Franek said. “We chose them primarily based on our high opinion of their academic offerings.”
BYU is the flagship university of the Church Educational System of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Other CES schools were not included in the book or its ranking lists.
The book contained data obtained from the schools for comparisons.
For example, BYU reported 11,006 applicants and an acceptance rate of 69%. Utah reported 22,996 applicants and an acceptance rate of 87%.
The average high school GPA of BYU students was 3.90 and Utah’s was 3.68. The 25th-75th percentile ACT composite scores of enrolled students was 28-32 for BYU and 22-29 for Utah.
What is the Princeton Review’s 2025 “Cancel the Keg” Top 10?
1. BYU in Provo, Utah. (32,221)
2. College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Missouri. (1,508)
3. City University of New York-Brooklyn College in Brooklyn, N.Y. (11,313)
4. Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. (2,588)
5. City University of New York-Hunter College in New York, N.Y. (18,758)
6. Taylor University in Upland, Indiana. (2,372)
7. City University of New York-Baruch College (15,859)
8. CUNY City College of New York in New York, N.Y. (12,351)
9. Wheaton College of Wheaton, Illinois. (2,119)
10. California State University, Stanislaus in Turlock, California. (8,670)
Where did BYU rank on the 2025 Princeton Review lists?
BYU ranked in the top 25 of 16 Princeton Review lists:
- Cancel the Keg: No. 1.
- Best College Library: No. 1. Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia was second and the University of Utah was sixth.
- Scotch and Soda, Hold the Scotch: No. 2. This is how students perceive how widely used hard liquor is. Cancel the Keg’s top three are reshuffled in this category about student perception of hard liquor use. This time, College of the Ozarks was first and CUNY-Brooklyn College was third.
- Top 20 Best Value Colleges w/o Aid (Private Schools): No. 3. MIT was first and Harvey Mudd second.
- LGBTQ-Unfriendly: No. 3: This is about students’ perceptions of their fellow students, not the university. In the survey, they respond to the statement, “Students treat all persons equally, regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity/expression.”
- Best-Run Colleges: No. 4. What you need to know: High Point University in North Carolina was first, TCU was second and the University of Richmond third.
- Pot’s Not Hot: No. 6. How widely is marijuana used at your school? BYU students said, “It’s not.” The three military academies finished one, two, three here — Army, Air Force, Navy. Thomas Aquinas and College of the Ozarks rounded out the top five.
- Students Love Their School Teams: No. 6. Students love Cougar sports. The top-ranked team was Gonzaga, BYU’s late West Coast Conference nemesis in basketball. Two of the top five were new Big 12 rivals — Arizona State topped the list and Kansas State was fifth. Syracuse and Clemson were third and fourth.
- Most Religious Students: No. 9. The only schools where students rated themselves more than BYU students did were Hillsdale College, Wheaton College, Grove City College, Auburn University, Thomas Aquinas College, Gordon College, Calvin University and Saint Anselm College. Auburn is the only other school in the top 10 with more than 2,700 students. The University of Utah was 15th and Baylor 16th.
- Top 20 Best Schools for Internships (Private Schools): No. 10. Northeastern was No. 1.
- Town-Gown Relations are Great: No. 10. The U.S. Naval Academy was first for getting along with members of the local community.
- Most Engaged in Community Service: No. 16. Marquette students rated their peers No. 1 for being committed to service.
- Everyone Plays Intramural Sports. No. 24. Alabama, TCU and Gettysburg were the top three.
- Best College Dorms: No. 24. Bowdoin was first and Bates College in Maine was 25th.
- Least Politically Active Students. No. 25. The survey statement is, “My level of political awareness is: Very high, high, average, low or very low.” The students at the State University of New York at Geneseo ranked themselves the least politically aware, followed by the University of Utah.
- Top 50 Best Value Colleges (Private Schools): No. 25. BYU is the only school among the 50 in the ranking that has more than 17,000 students. In fact, only one other school (Cornell) on the list has more than 10,000 students.
Where did the University of Utah rank on the 2025 Princeton Review lists?
Utah ranked in the top 50 of seven Princeton Review lists.
- Least Politically Active Students. No. 2. Utah students reported their level of political awareness as very low, lower than every school except the State University of New York at Geneseo.
- Best Athletic Facilities: No. 5. On the other hand, students on the Hill in Salt Lake City rated their athletic and recreational facilities very highly. The four that ranked high include some of college sports’ giants — Ohio State, Auburn, Kansas State and Alabama.
- Best College Library: No. 6. The top five were BYU, Hampden-Sydney College, Mount Holyoke, Emory and William & Mary. That makes Utah second among public schools.
- Best Health Services: No. 6. The top five for best campus health services were Virginia, Lake Forest College, Wabash College, Florida International and North Carolina-Asheville.
- Most Conservative Students: No. 9. The top two were Thomas Aquinas and College of the Ozarks. BYU, previously a stronghold in his category, was not among the top 25.
- Most Religious Students: No. 15. Between BYU at ninth and Utah at 15th was the University of Dallas, Taylor University, College of the Ozarks, Pepperdine and the Catholic University of America.
- Top 50 Best Value Colleges (Public Schools): No. 40. This is a return-on-investment rating. Princeton Review uses data about starting and mid-career salaries from PayScale.com and also analyzes academic rating, financial aid rating and the cost of attendance. Utah was nestled between Colorado and Montana Tech.
Utah also ranked highly on two other data-driven lists separate from student surveys.
Top undergraduate video game design schools in the West: No. 2. USC was No. 1. The ranking was based on institutional survey data, including quality of lab facilities, faculty credentials, career outcomes and more.
Top undergraduate entrepreneurship studies in the West: No. 2. Washington was No. 1. The rating was based in part on institutional survey data, including academic offerings, experiential learning opportunities and career outcomes.
Where did Westminster University rank on the 2025 Princeton Review lists?
Westminster made the book as one of the Princeton Review’s Best 390 Colleges. The school was not included in any of the 50 student-survey ranking lists.