Admissions & selectivity
William & Mary Acceptance Rate & Admissions
What is the acceptance rate at William & Mary?
William & Mary’s reported acceptance rate is 34.1%.
- Acceptance rate · Fall 2024
- 34.1%
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.
Source: William & Mary Common Data Set 2025-26, C1 · first-time, first-year students.
How to interpret the acceptance rate
William & Mary admits 34.1% of applicants, a rate far below the median of 85.9% for comparable institutions (same type and size). In its 2025-26 Common Data Set, the university reported 16,895 applicants, 6,245 admitted, and 1,639 enrolled.
What SAT and ACT scores do enrolled William & Mary students report?
In its 2025-26 Common Data Set, William & Mary reported an average high-school GPA of 4.34 among the 88.0% of enrolled first-year students who submitted a GPA. Among enrolled first-year students with a reported class rank, 79% finished in the highest tenth of their high-school class and 95% in the highest quarter.
Class rank was reported by 30% of the entering class. Enrolled first-year students who submitted SAT scores landed between 1390 and 1520 across the middle half, a range covering 48% of the entering class.
The median among those submitters was 1450. ACT submitters scored from 32 to 34 within the middle half, a group making up 14% of the class.
The median ACT score was 33. Applicants can weigh their own scores against these ranges as context, not as a cutoff.
The ranges below describe enrolled students who submitted test scores at William & Mary. Use them as academic context, then check the university’s current testing policy for your application cycle.
48% of entering students submitted SAT scores
- 25th percentile
- 1390
- Median
- 1450
- 75th percentile
- 1520
CDS 2025-26 · enrolled first-year score submitters. This range is not an admission cutoff.
14% of entering students submitted ACT scores
- 25th percentile
- 32
- Median
- 33
- 75th percentile
- 34
CDS 2025-26 · enrolled first-year score submitters. This range is not an admission cutoff.
Source: William & Mary Common Data Set 2025-26, C9 · Enrolled first-time, first-year score submitters.
Who enrolls at William & Mary?
- Pell Grant recipients
- 12.4%
- Entering students outside the first-time, full-time group
- 10.2%
- First-year retention
- 94.6%
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.
An estimated 10.2% of students enter as transfers or part-time students, while 12.4% of undergraduates receive Pell Grants, a measure of financial access. William & Mary enrolls 7,055 undergraduates, a population composed mainly of first-time entrants.
In its 2025-26 Common Data Set, the university reported 16,895 first-year applicants, 6,245 admitted, and 1,639 enrolled. The same source listed 963 degree-seeking transfer applicants, 440 admitted, and 206 enrolled.
William & Mary retains 94.6% of first-year students, above the 73.7% median for comparable institutions. The six-year graduation rate is 89.4%, also above the 49.1% median.
In its 2025-26 Common Data Set, the university listed a 95% retention rate for the first-time, full-time fall 2024 entering class. For the first-time, full-time fall 2019 entering class, the six-year graduation rate was 88.3%; Pell recipients in that cohort graduated at 80.3%, below the overall figure.
Pell recipients in the first-time full-time cohort complete at 89.7%, 0.3 percentage points above the overall rate. Enrolled students can expect retention and graduation outcomes that exceed the medians for comparable institutions.
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.