Bowdoin College Data & Information Overview

This overview covers the essential stats on Bowdoin College, including its rankings, majors, diversity, and more. Want to know more about a specific stat? Just click on its tile, and you'll go to a page that goes more in-depth on that subject. You can also use the links below to go directly to any section on this page.

• Rankings
• Admission and Acceptance
• Faculty
• Retention and Graduation Rates
• Diversity
• Cost
• Student Debt
• Average Earnings
• Location
• Majors
• Online Learning
• Related Schools

How Well Is Bowdoin College Ranked?

2021 Rankings

College Factual recognizes the best colleges and universities in its annual rankings. These rankings include categories for best overall colleges, best colleges for each major, best value schools, and much more.

Bowdoin College was awarded 57 badges in the 2021 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is political science and government.

Overall Quality

Bowdoin landed the #30 spot in College Factual's 2021 ranking of best overall colleges in the United States. The higher ed experts analyzed 1,715 colleges and universities across the nation to determine this ranking. This lands it a coveted spot in the top 5% of all colleges and universities in the country.

Out of the 17 colleges in Maine, Bowdoin is ranked at #1.

See all of the rankings for Bowdoin College.

Is It Hard to Get Into Bowdoin?

Acceptance Rate

With an acceptance rate of 14%, Bowdoin is one of the most selective schools in the country. Good grades and high test scores alone may not be enough to get you into the school, so do your best to submit a stellar application.

Learn more about Bowdoin College admissions.

Bowdoin College Faculty

Student to Faculty Ratio

At Bowdoin, the student to faculty ratio is an excellent 9 to 1. That's much better than the national average of 15 to 1. This indicates that many classes will probably be small, and students will have ample opportunites to work closely with their professors and classmates.

Percent of Full-Time Faculty

In addition to the student to faculty ratio, some people look at what percentage of faculty members are full-time as a sign of how much time professors will be able to spend with their students. This is because part-time teachers may not be be on campus as much as their full-time counterparts.

The full-time faculty percentage at Bowdoin College is 86%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.

Retention and Graduation Rates at Bowdoin College

Freshmen Retention Rate

Bowdoin College has a freshmen retention rate of 96%. That's a good sign that full-time students like the school and their professors enough to want to stick around for another year. It's also a sign that the admissions team did a good job in choosing applicants who were a good fit for the school.

Graduation Rate

Students are considered to have graduated on time if they finish their studies within four years. At Bowdoin the on-time graduation rate of first-time, full-time students is 86%. That is great when compared to the national average of 33.3%

Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Bowdoin College.

Excellent Overall Diversity at Bowdoin

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 1,828 undergraduates at Bowdoin with 1,825 being full-time and 3 being part-time.

Bowdoin Diversity Score

When calculating the overall diversity score for a school, College Factual does not just look at the percentage of women and racial-ethnic minorities*. Instead, it looks to see how good of a mixture a school has with regard to gender, ethnicity, age, and location of origin.

With an overall score of 99.23 out of 100, Bowdoin is one of the most diverse schools in the nation.

Get more detailed information on diversity and student demographics at Bowdoin College.

How Much Does Bowdoin College Cost?

The overall average net price of Bowdoin is $21,300. The affordability of the school largely depends on your financial need since net price varies by income group. See the table below for the net price for different income groups.

Net Price by Income Group for Bowdoin

$0-30 K	$30K-48K	$48-75	$75-110K	$110K +
$6,123	$8,329	$17,078	$21,013	$36,344

The net price is calculated by adding tuition, room, board and other costs and subtracting financial aid.Note that the net price is typically less than the published for a school. For more information on the sticker price of Bowdoin, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.

Student Loan Debt

While almost two-thirds of students nationwide take out loans to pay for college, the percentage may be quite different for the school you plan on attending. At Bowdoin, approximately 18% of students took out student loans averaging $7,044 a year. That adds up to $28,176 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at Bowdoin is 2.5%. This is significantly lower than the national default rate of 10.1%, which is a good sign that you'll be able to pay back your student loans.

Get more details about paying for Bowdoin College.

How Much Money Do Bowdoin Graduates Make?

The pay for some majors is higher than others, but on average, students who graduate with a bachelor's degree from Bowdoin make about $65,500 a year during their first few years of employment after graduation. That's great news for Bowdoin students since it is 65% more than the average college graduate's salary of $39,802 per year.

See which majors at Bowdoin College make the most money.

Location of Bowdoin College

Bowdoin College is a private not-for-profit institution located in Brunswick, Maine. The charming, small-town atmosphere of Brunswick draws many to the area.

Get more details about the location of Bowdoin College.

Contact details for Bowdoin are given below.

	Contact Details
Address:	255 Maine Street, Brunswick, ME 04011
Phone:	207-725-3000
Website:	https://www.bowdoin.edu/
Facebook:	http://facebook.com/Bowdoin
Twitter:	http://twitter.com/bowdoincollege

Bowdoin College Majors

Most Popular Majors	Bachelor’s Degrees	Average Salary of Graduates
Political Science & Government	108	$50,400
Economics	69	$65,100
Mathematics	54	$59,400
Area Studies	53	NA
History	34	NA
Computer Science	30	$88,700
Natural Resources Conservation	30	$22,500
Neurobiology & Neurosciences	27	NA
General Biology	27	NA
Child Development & Psychology	26	NA

Learn more about the majors offered at Bowdoin College along with which ones have the highest average starting salaries.

Learn more about online learning at Bowdoin College.

Related Schools

If you’re considering Bowdoin College, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.

• Amherst College
• Grinnell College
• Haverford College
• Oberlin College
• Wesleyan University

Curious on how these schools stack up against Bowdoin? Pit them head to head with College Combat, our free interactive tool that lets you compare college on the features that matter most to you!

Notes and References

Footnotes

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

References

• National Center for Education Statistics
• College Scorecard
• Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System
• Image Credit: By Daderot under License

More about our data sources and methodologies.