What to Know
- The Princeton Review's Annual College Rankings were released on Monday.
- Seven schools from the tri-state area ranked in the top-20 for "Least Happy Students."
- Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ was listed the highest of the tri-state colleges, ranking third overall.
If you attend a college in the tri-state area, there's a chance you could be among the unhappiest students in country, according to The Princeton Review's Annual College Rankings.
In its 2020 edition, The Princeton Review surveyed 140,000 students at 385 of the nation’s top colleges on a plethora of topics, ranging from “Best Campus Food,” to “Most Beautiful Campus,” and even the list that generates buzz from both students and parents in “Party Schools.” The top-20 schools in each list were released on Monday.
It also surveyed students on how happy, or unhappy, they are at their current schools, and seven schools in the tri-state area cracked the top-20.
When it came to the schools with the “Least Happy Students,” the highest of the tri-state schools on the list is Seton Hall University, located in South Orange, NJ, sitting third on the list. St. John’s in Queens is two spots behind, ranked fifth. Pace University is listed at no. 7, and Queens College of the City University of New York (CUNY) follows suit at no. 8, rounding out the four tri-state colleges in the top ten.
Both Seton Hall and St. John’s were ranked in the top ten of last year’s rankings of “Least Happy Students,” at seventh and ninth, respectively. Pace and Queens College CUNY were also in last year’s top-20, at 14th and 18th, respectively.
Three other tri-state schools fell into the bottom half of the top-20 in this year’s edition of “Least Happy Students” – New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) in Newark came in at no. 14, Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY is listed at no. 16, and CUNY Hunter College is right behind at 17th.
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The top two schools in the 2020 edition of “Least Happy Students” retained their spots from last year. Simmons University in Boston sits at second, while Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans reclaims the unwanted top spot for the second consecutive year as the school where its students are the least happy.
On the other end of the spectrum, two Connecticut schools placed in the top-20 for "Happiest Students" – Sacred Heart University ranked tenth, and Fairfield University came in at no. 19. The school with the happiest students, according to the list, is Auburn University in Alabama.
Click here for the 2020 rankings of “Least Happy Students.” For all of The Princeton Review’s 2020 rankings, you can view the full lists here, with site registration. The Princeton Review's 2020 edition of its full guidebook, "The Best 385 Colleges," will be released on Tuesday for sale.
NBC 4 New York reached out to Seton Hall University and CUNY, and both did not comment.
