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Bowdoin College Data & Information Overview

365 awards Ranking Badges
Great Price Value for Your Money
9% Acceptance Rate
Get the facts about Bowdoin College. Learn how it ranks, what majors it offers, how diverse it is, and much more.
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How Well Is Bowdoin College Ranked?

#56 Best Colleges in Nation
#1 Best Colleges in ME
Latin American Studies Highest Ranked Major
Quality Badge

2024 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 365 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is latin american studies.

Explore Best Ranked Schools for You

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Overall Quality

Bowdoin is ranked #56 out of 2,217 schools in the nation for overall quality on College Factual's 2024 Best Colleges list. This lands it a coveted spot in the top 5% of all colleges and universities in the country.

Out of the 19 colleges in Maine, Bowdoin is ranked at #1.

See all of the rankings for Bowdoin College.

Is It Hard to Get Into Bowdoin?

9% Acceptance Rate
52% Of Accepted Are Women

Acceptance Rate

Even if you have the best grades and high test scores, that may not be enough to get into Bowdoin since the school has one of the most selective in the country. Its acceptance rate is a mere 9%, so there's no shame if you don't get in. Be sure to apply to other schools just in case.

Learn more about Bowdoin College admissions.

Bowdoin College Faculty

9 to 1 Student to Faculty
90% Full Time Teachers

Student to Faculty Ratio

The student to faculty ratio at Bowdoin is an impressive 9 to 1. That's quite good when you compare it to the national average of 15 to 1. This is a good sign that students at the school will have more opportunities for one-on-one interactions with their professors.

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 90%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.

Full-Time Faculty Percent  90 out of 100
0
100

Retention and Graduation Rates at Bowdoin College

97% Freshmen Retention
89% On-Time Graduation Rate

Freshmen Retention Rate

The freshmen retention rate of 97% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like Bowdoin College enough to come back for another year. This is a fair bit higher than the national average of 68%. That's certainly something to check off in the good column about the school.

Freshmen Retention Rate  97 out of 100
0
100

Graduation Rate

The on-time graduation rate for someone pursuing a bachelor's degree is typically four years. This rate at Bowdoin for first-time, full-time students is 89%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.

On-Time Graduation Rate  89 out of 100
0
100

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

Bowdoin College Undergraduate Student Diversity

1,776 Full-Time Undergraduates
36.1% Racial-Ethnic Minorities*
51.5% Percent Women

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 1,777 undergraduates at Bowdoin with 1,776 being full-time and 1 being part-time.

How Much Does Bowdoin College Cost?

$22,840 Net Price
11% Take Out Loans
$23,844 Total Student Loans
The overall average net price of Bowdoin is $22,840. 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 +
$5,626 $7,823 $14,896 $22,177 $40,166

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

Almost 66% of college students who graduated with the class of 2018 took out student loans, but that percentage varies from school to school. At Bowdoin, approximately 11% of students took out student loans averaging $5,961 a year. That adds up to $23,844 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at Bowdoin is 0.7%. 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?

$66,864 Avg Salary of Grads
High Earnings Boost
Yearly salaries vary depending on what you major in, but on average, bachelor's degree recipients from Bowdoin make around $66,864 per year during the early years of their employment. This is good news for future Bowdoin graduates since it is 57% more than the average college graduate's salary of $42,485 per year.

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See which majors at Bowdoin College make the most money.

Location of Bowdoin College

Maine State
1,776 Full-Time Undergraduates
Town Campus Setting
Bowdoin College is a private not-for-profit institution situated in Brunswick, Maine. The charming, small-town atmosphere of Brunswick draws many to the area.

Get more details about the location of Bowdoin College.

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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

34 Majors With Completions
619 Undergraduate Degrees
Most Popular Majors Bachelor’s Degrees Average Salary of Graduates
Political Science & Government 100 $51,934
Economics 72 $61,127
Area Studies 51 $46,244
Mathematics 42 NA
General Biology 34 $44,658
Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology 30 $39,454
Sociology 28 $34,060
General English Literature 27 NA
Neurobiology & Neurosciences 25 NA
Computer Science 24 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.

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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

More about our data sources and methodologies.

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