Dreaming of a college with top-tier campus food, outstanding dorms, and students who are happy and passionate about their sports teams? According to The Princeton Review, the University of Dayton might just be your ideal choice.

The University of Dayton lands on The Princeton Review's top 25 lists for "Best College Library," "Best-Run Colleges," "Best Campus Food," "Best College Dorms," "Students Love Their School Teams" and "Happiest Students."

UD also earned recognition as a "Best Midwestern," "Best Value College," and is included in the "Colleges That Create Futures" and "Green Colleges" categories in The Princeton Review's Best 390 Colleges: 2025 Edition.

"The colleges we profile in our book are truly a select group: they constitute about 15% of America's four-year institutions. We chose them primarily based on our high opinion of their academic offerings," said Rob Franek, editor-in-chief of The Princeton Review and author of The Best 390 Colleges. "The colleges that make our book's ranking lists do so entirely as a result of the opinions of their customers —students attending the colleges — who complete our 89-question survey about their school."

The profiles in Best 390 Colleges: 2025 Edition have information on the schools' admission and aid application requirements, enrollment, acceptance rates and student body demographics. Quotes from surveyed students reveal their opinions on everything from their professors to their campus food. 

Here are some of the things students told The Princeton Review.

There are many reasons to attend the University of Dayton, but the one mentioned above all is its experiential learning. "We have opportunities for real world experience in every major" (and sometimes even further independent expertises by department), like "the Sophomore Experience Entrepreneurship Program that gives students a $5,000 grant to run their own microbusiness." Engineers have space, time, and resources to build rigs and run experiments, "the music program is phenomenal," and minicourses in subjects like microeconomics utilize the Dayton area to show "the interaction between economics and the environment through outdoor excursions that were often very informative." All of this is backstopped by the professors, to whom students give high marks. "Most of my professors have been extremely nice, approachable, and engaging." They "challenge you but also really want you to succeed, especially if you participate in discussions and provide quality work on assignments and exams." Indeed, "they want to show each student that they have potential to be great, but they have to unlock it."

Undergrads at the University of Dayton overwhelmingly agree that their peers are "very sweet," and "super welcoming and approachable" people who foster a strong sense of community and school spirit. Given the "relatively small class sizes, it's easy to get to know a lot of people in your major" and others more simply describe it as common to see "strangers quickly become friends and friends become like family." 

Read the University's full profile here.