Admissions & selectivity
CUNY City College Acceptance Rate & Admissions
What is the acceptance rate at CCNY?
CCNY’s reported acceptance rate is 60.0%.
- Acceptance rate · Fall 2024
- 60.0%
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: CUNY City College Common Data Set 2025-26, C1 · first-time, first-year students.
How to interpret the acceptance rate
In its 2025-26 Common Data Set, the university reported 34,284 applicants, 19,880 admitted students, and 2,700 who enrolled. CUNY City College admitted 60.0% of applicants, a share that falls under the median of 78.1% for comparable institutions (same type and size).
What SAT and ACT scores do CCNY students report?
In its 2025-26 Common Data Set, the university reported a 3.14 average high-school GPA among the 92.0% of enrolled first-year students who reported a GPA. Enrolled students who submitted SAT scores posted a middle 50% range of 1,070 to 1,430.
These figures describe the enrolled class, not minimum requirements. Applicants can use the 1,070 and 1,430 SAT figures as a benchmark for the academic profile of recent entering students.
The ranges below describe enrolled students who submitted test scores at CCNY. Use them as academic context, then check the university’s current testing policy for your application cycle.
- Approximate lower endpoint
- 1070
- Approximate upper endpoint
- 1430
Enrolled students who submitted scores. This range is not an admission cutoff. The endpoints add section percentiles; they are not verified composite-score percentiles. A separate SAT-equivalent average is not plotted as a median. Source: College Scorecard; sum of section 25th/75th percentiles; enrolled score-submitters.
Figures cover fall 2024.
Who enrolls at CCNY?
- Pell Grant recipients
- 60.5%
- Entering students outside the first-time, full-time group
- 30.7%
- First-year retention
- 79.3%
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.
CUNY City College enrolls 12,505 undergraduates, with 60.5% receiving Pell Grants and an estimated 30.7% entering as transfers or part-time students. The student body is built from multiple entry points rather than a single traditional path.
In its 2025-26 Common Data Set, the university reported 34,284 first-year applicants, 19,880 admitted, and 2,700 enrolled. For transfer students, it reported 8,240 applicants, 3,689 admitted, and 949 enrolled.
For the first-time, full-time cohort, the federal six-year graduation rate is 56.8%, which sits below the peer median of 65.0% for comparable institutions (same type and size). The first-year retention rate is 79.3%, also below the peer median of 83.1%.
In its 2025-26 Common Data Set, the university reported a retention rate of 83% for the first-time, full-time fall 2024 entering class. The six-year graduation rate for the first-time, full-time fall 2019 entering class was 50.0%, with Pell recipients in that cohort completing at 49.0%, below the overall rate.
Pell recipients in the federal cohort complete at 48.6%, which is 8.2 percentage points below the overall rate.
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.