There is some great information about schools with higher admit rates, but it’s often tucked into threads that are particular to a specific family’s situation. This thread is meant to be a general resource on schools with admit rates in the 60-100% range. There is a separate thread to discuss schools with admit rates in the 20-59% range.
What’s a college in the 60-100% admit range that you like? What do you like about it? This can be anything from positive experiences while attending the school, visiting the campus, outcomes of students, strength in a particular area of study, engagement of staff and faculty with students, etc. If you liked something about the school, please share it!
Schools may be mentioned more than one time if more than one poster liked it. Once again, if you like a school, please talk about it!
I don’t mind starting things off. My first thought was Wagner College on Staten Island in NYC:
: About Wagner College
At 1600 undergraduates, mostly nursing and business majors - but with a significant arts crowd - it has the look and feel of a NESCAC college, but with a 70% acceptance rate.
Clarkson University in Potsdam, NY - 78% acceptance rate
We were incredibly impressed when we toured. They have a very strong engineering program, optional co-op, very high rates of career placement, a very nice honors college, and they stack scholarship. They have some fun engineering teams and have a ton of school spirit around their hockey team. Small and outdoorsy.
U of Akron in Akron, OH - 83% acceptance rate
Very strong chemical and plastics engineering programs. Optional co-ops, strong placement rates.
Also a nice honors college. Very generous with merit scholarship, especially for OH residents, but COA is under $40K for OOS with no merit.
Small urban campus, nice modern lab facilities.
Seton Hall (75% acceptance rate) - easy access to NYC with a train station walking distance away. The town of South Orange is mostly nice (the downtown area is convenient and nice). Well known for their diplomacy school. And if you like some D1 basketball, then you’ve got a Big East team right there!
Loyola Maryland (75% acceptance rate) - in a nice part of Baltimore with access to a city, but in a quiet, tucked away neighborhood. I’m not sure how useful the Baltimore Student Exchange Program is, but it seems like a nice way to take advanced classes in specialized topics at other colleges like Towson and Johns Hopkins that are nearby. Seems like a pretty active campus as well.
Many majors, good athletics, great college town, happy students
University of Dayton 62% acceptance rate
Great outcomes in business and engineering, good school spirit, medium size, happy students. Great career services, among the best I’ve seen anywhere (looking at you certain NESCAC schools)
University of Delaware 64% acceptance rate
Also great outcomes in business and engineering, strong health sciences. Great college town. Friendly, happy students. Not great school spirit, but not terrible either. On the smaller side for state flagships. Large in person career fairs.
Manhattan University (82%) - Visited with my niece who had been favoring a small, upstate LAC. She’s interested in business and fell in love with Manhattan because she didn’t expect to find such an attractive campus in a city neighborhood although it’s not actually in Manhattan. Although small, the campus is enhanced by its location in Fieldston/Riverdale, one of the most charming and upscale neighborhoods in the city. In addition, when we walked out the front door of one of the dorms, 1100 acre Van Cortlandt Park was literally right across Broadway, adding tons of open space. What sold her vs the upstate LAC is that its location and networking with alums offered access to lots of internships in the NYC business community. Now that she’s there, she has found it to be a friendly community and is happily making new friends. Her only complaint is the food - although she is hoping for better in the 2nd semester as they have changed food companies. I should note that their large engineering school is their strongest academic offering.
Miami of Ohio, Oxford, OH - acceptance rate 88%
I know a bunch of students and everyone has raved about their time there. Beautiful campus, great outcomes, generous merit. We know a number of accountants that are recent grads who were thrilled with that program.
University of Hartford for engineering. I’m not sure this school is ranked at all, but the college of engineering trains well, and has good job placement in the area.
IOWA STATE - 89% Part of the high acceptance rate is probably due to the auto admit if you meet the RAI. It tells you if you have the required points before you apply, so my assumption is that if you don’t meet the RAI requirement, you probably will not apply.
Colorado State University 90% I love everything about this place from the town to the President of the University. S23 turned down much lower admit schools for CSU and is receiving a great education.
UMN Twin Cities 79% Love that it is a land grant institution in the middle of a city. Great campus, lots of really good programs. Well respected and in an area where it is very easy to access internships.
Basically, most of the state flagships will have a lot of offer no matter what their acceptance rate is. They are big enough to be “pick your own adventure” schools where there will be something for everyone. You’ll still find very high-stat students, there will just be more neurodiversity (which I think is a good thing).
Cornell College 79% - We didn’t get to visit, but I love the One Course At A Time model.
Juniata College 76% and Washington College 75% - Great schools for kids that want a small school and are chasing merit. Close knit communities and the graduates I know all had close relationships with at least 1 professor.
Two colleges I find myself mentioning a lot, really quite different, are Kalamazoo College (76%) and Iowa State (89%). Kalamazoo first . . . .
My connection to Kalamazoo was originally more to the city of the same name than the college, but I have had enough other contacts and done enough research with the college to feel comfortable recommending it when appropriate. But the city is in fact very attractive–a vibrant smaller city (or larger town), life sciences hub, cool arts and music scene, just lots to do. It is also only about 2.5 hours from Chicago, and in fact you can take a train if you like.
The college itself is quite old and a pretty classic LAC overall, including in appearance. But what they call their K-Plan is one of my favorite curriculum approaches anywhere. Not totally unique, of course, but just a really well-done flexible approach where different experiences are thoughtfully integrated:
Like many academicky LACs, Kalamazoo does very well in things like per capita PhD placement studies, across a variety of fields:
And it has a pretty robust merit program, which is nice.
Marist- lovely setting on the river, alums are very loyal (just barely over 60% acceptance last I checked though). pretty big selection of programs - pre-professional and liberal arts. tons of study abroad..
Ithaca - great film/tv programs, great college town.
U of New Hampshire- pretty campus, current families I know think it is great, can walk to amtrak station and small town/shops. Reasonable size for a state flagship. Some rarer engineering programs (ocean engineering!)
URI - pretty campus a few minutes to a beach!, brand new engineering building, solid business program. Orientation program, by major, with a “major RA” assigned sounded great.
RIT - great engineering (51 nationally for engineering in us news) but also lots of other programs too…coop program.
Hope College 80% if you’re good with a Christian college, this is a great one. Outstanding merit, 10-15% of each class attends with a full merit scholarship, adorable campus in gorgeous Holland, Michigan right near the lake. Super dynamic president with big plans for the school.
Gonzaga 67% nice school full of nice kids. Lightly Catholic, outdoorsy, excellent nursing and accounting programs with a very high average starting salary for the school. S25 wrote his essay about his love of playing the guitar and despite being a prospective business major, he just got an email from the head of the music department about opportunities for him to continue playing - just based on his essay.
Miami U 88% lovely school with a great business school. Oxford is the perfect college town and the school just has a great vibe.
Creighton University 76% similar to Gonzaga but in Omaha Nice midsize college with fabulous nursing and a great business school. Again with just nice kids.
Elon University 74% beautiful campus if a little remote. Really cool Communications department with loads of opportunities.
Then Iowa State–again, I don’t want to be redundant, but I agree the RAI formula makes it very transparent and so naturally drives up the admit rate because people below the RAI will presumably usually not apply. But even so, the nature of the formula makes it a good option to check out for many kids, not least if you are the sort of person with grades and test scores that don’t correlate in the usual way. They also are not too expensive to begin with, and then have decent need and merit, including for OOS students.
Then the main reason I personally mention Iowa State so much is it has a very strong engineering program. It is large, it is diverse, there are lots of clubs, the engineers I have seen talk about it generally have a good opinion . . . . The one thing I have also heard that might count as a bit of negative is that since it is relatively easy for admissions, there is definitely a sink or swim vibe to the earlier classes. But engineering is mostly like that anywhere.
So if you are the sort of kid who is looking for a really good engineering school with very transparent admissions, Iowa State is a great option to consider.
One more
Butler University 80% - this is a great school and I’m actually surprised it hasn’t become more competitive. Known for the three B’s Ballet, Business, and Basketball and one P - Pharmacy. Beautiful campus in a great part of Indianapolis, Butler has a theater on campus that hosts some of the best events in town, check it out. https://www.butlerartscenter.org/
Along the same lines of Hope College is Calvin University in Michigan 78%. Also Christian. Well regarded regional LAC with strong D3 athletics (this was a big one for S25: a combination of a small LAC with a T10 D3 program), generous merit and named scholarships. Lots of internship opportunities from the companies in the area who recruit Calvin students (we know Grand Rapids well and it continues to grow). Nationally ranked study abroad program.
It’s got a beautiful campus in a vibrant city. Excellent career outcomes. Admittedly it is not for everyone, but for those for whom it’s a good fit, it is excellent.
First, I love this thread and the 20-59% one too! Gonzaga has already been mentioned, so I will add another school on my D’s list.
University of Redlands 83%
Small school, about 2300 students in Southern California. Centrally located to the mountains and beaches. Division 3 SCIAC school for athletics. Starting women’s flag football as an NCAA sport next year. Great study abroad program in Salzburg, Austria since the 1960s. Ask me how I know it’s great.
Known for education (full disclosure I have my BA and MA in Education from Redlands), communicative disorders, and music majors. Also has a new GIS major with close ties to ESRI which is headquartered in Redlands. Beautiful campus and great weather year round! Great merit awards too!
Drexel has a 79% admit rate and it’s a real gem of a school for people who want an urban environment (Philadelphia). They have a stellar co-op program with ample research, especially for engineering but also STEM and fashion and I’ve never met anyone who attends who doesn’t love it. We almost felt like it was too good to be true and might even be one and done re not worrying about test scores etc etc, but my s25 just wanted more green patches.
Nice midsize college with fabulous nursing and a great business school. Again with just nice kids.