Admissions & selectivity
Gustavus Adolphus College Acceptance Rate & Admissions
What is the acceptance rate at Gustavus Adolphus College?
Gustavus Adolphus College’s reported acceptance rate is 61.0%.
- Acceptance rate · Fall 2024
- 61.0%
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: Gustavus Adolphus College Common Data Set 2024-25, C1 · first-time, first-year students.
How to interpret the acceptance rate
In its 2024-25 Common Data Set, Gustavus Adolphus College reported 5,283 first-year applicants, 3,227 admitted applicants, and 490 enrolled first-year students in that admissions cycle. The federal admission rate is 61.0%, below the median of 75.7% for comparable institutions (same type and size).
It records the share of the reported applicant pool admitted, rather than an individual applicant's odds.
What SAT and ACT scores do enrolled Gustavus Adolphus College students report?
In its 2024-25 Common Data Set, the university reported a 3.61 average high-school GPA among enrolled first-year students, drawn from the 94.5% who reported a GPA. This is an average, not a cutoff.
Among enrolled first-year students, 42% submitted ACT scores. The middle half of those submitters scored from 24 to 30, with a median of 27.
No enrolled students submitted SAT scores. Applicants can use the 24 to 30 range as context for recent score submitters, rather than as a minimum.
The figures describe enrolled students who submitted scores, not every enrolled student.
The ranges below describe enrolled students who submitted test scores at Gustavus Adolphus College. Use them as academic context, then check the university’s current testing policy for your application cycle.
42% of entering students submitted ACT scores
- 25th percentile
- 24
- Median
- 27
- 75th percentile
- 30
CDS 2024-25 · enrolled first-year score submitters. This range is not an admission cutoff.
Source: Gustavus Adolphus College Common Data Set 2024-25, C9 · Enrolled first-time, first-year score submitters.
Who enrolls at Gustavus Adolphus College?
- Pell Grant recipients
- 20.7%
- Entering students outside the first-time, full-time group
- 4.5%
- First-year retention
- 88.0%
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.
Pell Grant recipients account for 20.7% of undergraduates at Gustavus Adolphus College, placing federal grant aid within a campus of 1,878 undergraduates. The estimated 4.5% share of entrants outside the first-time, full-time group suggests that most undergraduates arrive through routes other than transfer, alongside a smaller group continuing coursework begun elsewhere.
In its 2024-25 Common Data Set, the university reported 125 degree-seeking transfer applicants, 52 admitted, and 23 enrolled. The enrollment and transfer figures show a primarily non-transfer undergraduate body that includes Pell Grant recipients.
Completion is a relative strength: 76.6% of the first-time full-time cohort earns a degree within six years. That figure is above the peer median, the middle value for comparable institutions (same type and size), of 54.9%.
First-year retention is 88.0% for full-time bachelor’s-seeking entrants, compared with 74.2% at comparable institutions. Pell recipients in the cohort have a 72.7% six-year completion rate, below the overall rate by 3.9 percentage points.
Enrolled students can expect retention and graduation figures that exceed peer medians, with a lower completion figure for Pell recipients.
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.