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Brown University Complete Information Guide

321 awards Ranking Badges
Fair Price Value for Your Money
5% Acceptance Rate

This overview covers the essential stats on Brown University, including its rankings, majors, diversity, and more.

Want to dig deeper into a particular stat? Just click on its tile and you’ll be taken 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

How Does Brown University Stack Up?

#40 Best Colleges in Nation
#1 Best Colleges in RI
Brown University ranking badge

2026 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 321 badges in the 2026 rankings.

National Standing

According to College Factual’s 2026 analysis, Brown is ranked #40 out of 3,449 schools in the nation that were analyzed for overall quality. This puts it in the top 5% of all schools in the nation.

Brown is also ranked #1 on the Best Colleges in Rhode Island list.

See all of the rankings for Brown University.

Is It Hard to Get Into Brown University?

5% Acceptance Rate
4% Of Accepted Are Women
61% Submit SAT Scores

Acceptance Rate

Brown University has a very low acceptance rate of 5%, 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 61% 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 740 and 780. Math scores were between 770 and 800.

SAT Reading and Writing Scores for Brown University  ( 740 to 780 )
200
800
SAT Math Scores for Brown University  ( 770 to 800 )
200
800

Brown received ACT scores from 24% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT Composite scores ranged between 34 and 35.

ACT Composite Scores for Brown University  ( 34 to 35 )
1
36

Learn more about Brown University admissions.

Teaching Staff at Brown University

6 to 1 Student to Faculty
90% Full Time Teachers

Faculty Accessibility

The student to faculty ratio at Brown is an impressive 6 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.

Full-Time Faculty Share

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%.

Full-Time Faculty Percent  90 out of 100
0
100

Academic Performance at Brown University

99% Freshmen Retention
96% On-Time Graduation Rate

First-Year Student Retention

Brown University has a freshmen retention rate of 99%. 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.

Freshmen Retention Rate  99 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 Brown for first-time, full-time students is 96%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.

On-Time Graduation Rate  96 out of 100
0
100

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

Student Demographics at Brown University

7,273 Undergraduate Students
47.6% Racial-Ethnic Minorities*
52.5% Percent Women

The current enrollment includes 7,273 undergraduates at Brown.

Get more detailed information on the diversity at Brown University.

How Much Does Brown University Cost?

$16,772 Net Price
10% Take Out Loans
$23,540 Total Student Loans

The overall average net price of Brown is $16,772. 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 +
$-2,158$2,273$7,757$19,526$45,823

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 price for a school. For more information on the sticker price of Brown, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.

Student 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 10% of students took out student loans averaging $5,885 a year. That adds up to $23,540 over four years for those students. The student loan default rate is 1.3%. 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.

What Do Brown University Alumni Earn?

$93,487 Avg Salary of Grads
High Earnings Boost

The pay for some majors is higher than others, but on average, students who graduate with a bachelor’s degree from Brown University make about $93,487 a year during their first few years of employment after graduation. This is good news for future Brown University graduates since it is 90% more than the average college graduate’s salary of $49,219 per year.

See which majors at Brown University make the most money.

Location of Brown University

Rhode Island State
7,273 Undergraduate Students
Midsize City Campus Setting

Brown University is an private not-for-profit institution situated in Providence, Rhode Island. The surrounding area of the school is a good match for students who enjoy city life. Get more details about the location of Brown University.

Location of Brown University

Contact information for Brown University can be found below.

Contact Details
Address:One Prospect Street, Providence, RI 02912
Phone:4018631000
Website:www.brown.edu
Facebook:www.facebook.com/BrownUniversity
Twitter:twitter.com/BrownUniversity

Brown University Academic Programs

22 Majors With Completions
7,986 Undergraduate Degrees

In the latest year of available data, students from 22 majors graduated from Brown University. The following table lists the most popular undergraduate majors along with the average salary graduates from those majors make.

Most Popular MajorsCompletionsAverage Salary of Graduates
Multi-Disciplinary Studies3,993NA
Computer Science448$130,101
Economics264$64,028
Applied Mathematics232$105,532
General Engineering209$70,583
General Social Sciences189NA
International Relations & Security178$37,882
Medicine134$60,843
General Biology112$29,535
General English Literature99$28,046

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

Online Study Options at Brown

8% Take At Least One Class Online
5% Take All Classes Online

Online courses are a great option for busy, working students as well as for those who have scheduling conflicts and want to study on their own time. As time goes by, expect to see more and more online learning options become available.

564 students took at least one online class at Brown University.

Learn more about online learning at Brown University.

Comparable CollegesWant to see how other colleges compare to Brown? Match them up using College Combat, a free interactive tool for comparing colleges on the features you care about.

Data Sources 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

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