The New School Acceptance Rate & Admissions

Admission at The New School is less common than at comparable institutions, with 63.5% of applicants admitted. That rate is below the median of 71.2% for comparable institutions (same type and size), and it describes the outcome for an applicant pool rather than any individual applicant.

The undergraduate body at The New School includes students receiving federal grant aid and others arriving after starting college elsewhere. Pell Grant recipients make up 15.0% of undergraduates, and the university has 6,563 undergraduates overall.

An estimated 22.7% of undergraduates enter as transfers or part-time students, making transfer entry a visible part of the campus composition. The mix suggests that the university serves students through both first-year and transfer pathways, alongside undergraduates who receive Pell Grants.

Applicants who are Pell-eligible or planning to transfer should request a written estimate of grant aid and how previously earned coursework will be evaluated before enrolling.

At The New School, both returning after the first year and finishing within six years run ahead of the middle result for comparable institutions. For the full-time bachelor’s-seeking first-year cohort, 84.8% return for a second year, versus a peer median of 83.4%.

The six-year graduation rate for the first-time full-time cohort is 69.4%, above the comparable-institution median of 68.8%. Pell recipients in that cohort have a six-year completion rate of 65.5%, below the overall rate by 3.9 percentage points.

Enrolled students can expect retention and overall completion measures above their peer medians, alongside a lower completion figure for Pell recipients.