Admissions & selectivity
California State Polytechnic University-Humboldt Acceptance Rate & Admissions
What is the acceptance rate at California State Polytechnic University-Humboldt?
California State Polytechnic University-Humboldt’s reported acceptance rate is 98.2%.
- Acceptance rate · Fall 2024
- 98.2%
Source: College Scorecard · Fall 2024 admissions. Acceptance rates can change from year to year; this figure does not predict the current or next admission cycle.
Source: California State Polytechnic University-Humboldt Common Data Set 2025-26, C1 · first-time, first-year students.
How to interpret the acceptance rate
California State Polytechnic University-Humboldt admits 98.2% of applicants, a rate that sits above the median of 85.9% for comparable institutions (same type and size). In its 2025-26 Common Data Set, the university reported 15,032 applicants, 13,981 admitted students, and 909 enrolled first-year students.
What SAT and ACT scores do enrolled California State Polytechnic University-Humboldt students report?
In its 2025-26 Common Data Set, California State Polytechnic University-Humboldt reported that 4% of its entering class submitted SAT scores. The middle half of those SAT submitters scored from 840 to 1120.
Most entering students did not submit SAT scores, so the SAT range describes a minority of the class.
The ranges below describe enrolled students who submitted test scores at California State Polytechnic University-Humboldt. Use them as academic context, then check the university’s current testing policy for your application cycle.
4% of entering students submitted SAT scores
- 25th percentile
- 840
- Median
- 990
- 75th percentile
- 1120
CDS 2025-26 · enrolled first-year score submitters. This range is not an admission cutoff.
Source: California State Polytechnic University-Humboldt Common Data Set 2025-26, C9 · Enrolled first-time, first-year score submitters.
Who enrolls at California State Polytechnic University-Humboldt?
- Pell Grant recipients
- 42.9%
- Entering students outside the first-time, full-time group
- 49.5%
- First-year retention
- 76.0%
Retention source: College Scorecard; full-time first-year retention.
About these student measures
The entering-student group includes part-time entrants as well as other attendance patterns.
California State Polytechnic University-Humboldt is a public university in Arcata, California, enrolling 5,612 undergraduates. Nearly half of them, an estimated 49.5%, arrive as transfers or part-time students, and 42.9% receive Pell Grants.
The campus draws heavily from students who started elsewhere. In its 2025-26 Common Data Set, the university reported 15,032 first-year applicants, 13,981 admitted, and 909 enrolled.
For transfer students, it reported 4,576 applicants, 3,877 admitted, and 887 enrolled.
Pell recipients in the first-time full-time cohort complete at 57.3%, which is 8.8 percentage points above the overall six-year rate. That is the headline: students who arrive with Pell Grants finish at a higher rate than the entering class as a whole.
The overall six-year graduation rate is 48.5%, just below the peer median of 49.1% for comparable institutions. First-year retention, at 76.0%, runs above its peer median of 73.7%.
In its 2025-26 Common Data Set, the university reported a retention rate of 77% for the first-time, full-time fall 2024 entering class. Enrolled students can expect persistence that runs ahead of the comparison group, with Pell students finishing at a rate that exceeds the cohort as a whole.
Data & methodology
Sources and reporting periods: methodology.
Analysis and methodology by Daniel Rogers, founder of College Azimuth.
Explanatory text is AI-assisted drafting checked against those figures; it is not an additional data source.
Admission rates describe past applicants, not an individual’s chance of admission; confirm requirements and deadlines with the institution.
Figure notes link to sources and limitations. About College Azimuth.