Top Colleges with Happy Students

If you’re happy and you know it and you really want to show it, complete a survey? Wondering which elite university in America boasts the happiest students? According to The Princeton Review, which conducted a survey asking students to agree or disagree with the statement, I am happy at my school,” Tulane University tops the 2022 list. Students just love Tulane. Placing second? That would be Vanderbilt University. Not too shabby.

Among highly selective universities, The College of William & Mary comes in at #9, Brown University at #10, University of Richmond at #14, Loyola Marymount University at #16, Emory University at #17, Rice University at #19, and Bowdoin College at #21. Notice a trend? We do! Between Tulane, William & Mary, Richmond, Emory, and Rice, a number of the elite universities featured among the top 25 happiest universities in this year’s Princeton Review ranking are in the South.

We’re not so sure this survey is particularly scientific. Were these students first-year students only? Seniors? Were they students who ate pizza for dinner or chocolate pudding for dessert? Were they only students who received SAT or ACT tutoring from — you guessed it — The Princeton Review (how 1980s of them…oh snap!)? Who knows — because we can’t find any explanation for the sampling population of this survey even within the company’s longer explanation for its methodology. But, in any case, congratulations to Tulane, Vanderbilt, and all the other elite universities with apparently — at least according to The Princeton Review — the happiest students.