Brown University Data & Information Overview

Want the scoop on Brown University? We've put together a comprehensive report on the school that covers what majors Brown offers, how the school ranks, how diverse it is, and much more. Want to dig deeper into a particular stat? Just click on its tile and you'll be taked to a more in-depth page on the figure. In addition, you can use the links below to quickly jump 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 Brown University Ranked?

2021 Rankings

College Factual analyzes over 2,000 colleges and universities in its annual rankings and ranks them in a variety of ways, including most diverse, best overall quality, best for non-traditional students, and much more.

Brown University was awarded 132 badges in the 2021 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is applied mathematics.

Overall Quality

Brown landed the #13 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 puts it in the top 1% of all schools in the nation!

Out of the 9 colleges in Rhode Island, Brown is ranked at #1.

See all of the rankings for Brown University.

Is It Hard to Get Into Brown?

Acceptance Rate

Brown University has a very low acceptance rate of 8%, making it one of the most selective out of all the colleges and universities in the nation. It's probably a good idea to apply to other schools in addition to Brown just in case you don't make the cut.

Average Test Scores

About 55% of students accepted to Brown submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 705 and 780. Math scores were between 700 and 790.

Brown received ACT scores from 61% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT Composite scores ranged between 31 and 35.

Learn more about Brown University admissions.

Brown University Faculty

Student to Faculty Ratio

The student to faculty ratio is often used to measure the number of teaching resources that a college or university offers its students. The national average for this metric is 15 to 1, but at Brown it is much better at 7 to 1. That's good news for students who want to interact more on a personal level with their teachers.

Percent of Full-Time Faculty

Another measure that is often used to estimate how much access students will have to their professors is how many faculty members are full-time. The idea here is that part-time faculty tend to spend less time on campus, so they may not be as available to students as full-timers.

The full-time faculty percentage at Brown University is 90%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.

Retention and Graduation Rates at Brown University

Freshmen Retention Rate

The freshmen retention rate of 98% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like Brown University 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.

Graduation Rate

The on-time graduation rate for someone pursuing a bachelor's degree is typically four years. This rate at Brown for first-time, full-time students is 83%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.

Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Brown University.

Excellent Overall Diversity at Brown

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 7,043 undergraduates at Brown with 6,735 being full-time and 308 being part-time.

Brown Diversity Score

College Factual computes an overall diversity score for each college and university that takes gender, ethnicity, geographic location, and age into account. Schools with the best mixtures of students with respect to these factors are ranked the highest, and those that cater to just one or two student groups are ranked the lowest.

With an overall score of 99.66 out of 100, Brown is one of the most diverse schools in the nation.

Get more detailed information on diversity and student demographics at Brown University.

How Much Does Brown University Cost?

The overall average net price of Brown is $31,685. 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 Brown

$0-30 K	$30K-48K	$48-75	$75-110K	$110K +
$6,250	$5,589	$14,452	$21,447	$47,403

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 Brown, 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 Brown, approximately 25% of students took out student loans averaging $8,232 a year. That adds up to $32,928 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at Brown is 1.0%. 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 Brown University.

How Much Money Do Brown Graduates Make?

Although some majors pay more than others, students who graduate from Brown with a bachelor's degree go on to jobs where they make an average salary of $67,500 in their early years. That's great news for Brown students since it is 70% more than the average college graduate's salary of $39,802 per year.

See which majors at Brown University make the most money.

Location of Brown University

Brown University is a private not-for-profit institution situated in Providence, Rhode Island. The location of the school is great for students who enjoy the amenities of city life.

Get more details about the location of Brown University.

Contact details for Brown are given below.

	Contact Details
Address:	One Prospect Street, Providence, RI 02912
Phone:	401-863-1000
Website:	www.brown.edu
Facebook:	https://www.facebook.com/BrownUniversity
Twitter:	https://twitter.com/BrownUniversity

Brown University Majors

During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 75 majors graduated from Brown University. Of these students, 2,097 received undergraduate degrees and 1,199 graduated with a master's or doctor's degree. The following table lists the most popular undergraduate majors along with the average salary graduates from those majors make.

Most Popular Majors	Bachelor’s Degrees	Average Salary of Graduates
Computer Science	185	$141,100
Economics	162	$58,400
Applied Mathematics	146	$91,700
General Biology	120	$30,500
Entrepreneurial Studies	91	$63,900
Area Studies	89	$37,000
History	87	$42,900
General Engineering	86	$73,500
General English Literature	84	$34,700
Political Science & Government	72	$44,300

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

Learn more about online learning at Brown University.

Related Schools

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

• Barnard College
• Emory University
• Hamilton College
• Vassar College
• Washington and Lee University

Curious on how these schools stack up against Brown? 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 Ad Meskens under License

More about our data sources and methodologies.