Admissions & selectivity
University of Southern Mississippi Acceptance Rate & Admissions
What is the acceptance rate at University of Southern Mississippi?
University of Southern Mississippi’s reported acceptance rate is 99.1%.
- Acceptance rate · Fall 2024
- 99.1%
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.
How to interpret the acceptance rate
University of Southern Mississippi admits 99.1% of applicants, a figure that sits well above the median of 78.1% for comparable institutions (same type and size).
What SAT and ACT scores do University of Southern Mississippi students report?
At University of Southern Mississippi, enrolled students who submitted ACT scores posted a wide spread. The span from 20 to 29 captures the central half of those submitters.
These two figures are not admission cutoffs, and they do not reflect students who enrolled without sending scores. Applicants should treat 20 and 29 as the edges of the range where the typical enrolled submitter landed.
A score between them sits in the same zone as the central half of recent students who reported their results. Those two figures offer context for where a score falls among enrolled submitters rather than establishing a minimum to meet.
The ranges below describe enrolled students who submitted test scores at University of Southern Mississippi. Use them as academic context, then check the university’s current testing policy for your application cycle.
- 25th percentile
- 20
- 75th percentile
- 29
Enrolled students who submitted scores. This range is not an admission cutoff.
Figures cover fall 2024.
Who enrolls at University of Southern Mississippi?
- Pell Grant recipients
- 46.3%
- Entering students outside the first-time, full-time group
- 46.3%
- First-year retention
- 72.1%
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.
University of Southern Mississippi is a public university in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, enrolling 10,075 undergraduates. Two groups shape the student body in roughly equal measure: Pell Grant recipients make up 46.3% of undergraduates, and an estimated 46.3% arrive as transfers or part-time students.
That means a large share of students use federal grant aid, and nearly half the student body began their coursework somewhere else. The campus is not defined by a single entry route.
The six-year graduation rate for first-time, full-time students at University of Southern Mississippi is 49.1%, and the first-year retention rate is 72.1%. Both figures sit below the medians for comparable institutions, which are 65.0% and 83.1% respectively.
Pell Grant recipients in the same entering cohort complete at a rate of 35.9%, which is 13.2 percentage points below the overall six-year rate. Outcomes for Pell students, while trailing the overall rate, are a known quantity.
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.