- August 12, 2025
- By Maryland Today Staff
The University of Maryland is one of the nation's top institutions for undergraduate academics, according to the 2026 edition of The Princeton Review’s annual college guide, released on Tuesday. UMD is also recognized on its list of Best in the Mid-Atlantic region.
The education services company profiles UMD in “The Best 391 Colleges” based on surveys of 2,000 college administrators about their institutions’ academic offerings. The company also surveyed 170,000 students attending the colleges in the book who rated their own schools on dozens of topics and reported on their campus experiences. Only about 15% of America’s nearly 2,400 four-year colleges are included in the guidebook.
In the profile of UMD, students were quoted as saying it offers “a great experience with a variety of opportunities” and “This school gives you a great education for a really cheap price.” Terps appreciate the “high-level courses taught by the nation’s top researchers” and love living on “one of the country’s most beautiful campuses.”
The university also received an exceptional rating (98/100) for its “performance as an environmentally aware and prepared institution.” This rating considers whether the campus quality of life is healthy and sustainable, how well a school is preparing students for employment in the clean-energy economy as well as for citizenship in a world now defined by environmental concerns and opportunities, and how environmentally responsible a school's policies are.
Information on themethodology for the rankings and the student survey is on The Princeton Review’s website.