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Clarkson University Data & Information Overview

10 awards Ranking Badges
Great Price Value for Your Money
78% Acceptance Rate
Find out more about how Clarkson University ranks, how diverse it is, what majors it offers, and other essential facts below. 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.

How Well Is Clarkson University Ranked?

#288 Best Colleges in Nation
#29 Best Colleges in NY
Engineering Technologies Highest Ranked Major
Quality Badge

2025 Rankings

In its yearly rankings, College Factual analyzes over 2,000 colleges and universities to determine which ones are the best in a variety of categories, such as overall value, quality, diversity, which schools are the best for each major, and much more.

Clarkson University was awarded 10 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is engineering technologies.

Explore Best Ranked Schools for You

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Overall Quality

Clarkson is ranked #288 out of 2,152 schools in the nation for overall quality on College Factual's 2025 Best Colleges list. This puts it in the top 20% of all schools in the nation. This is an improvement over the previous year, when Clarkson held the #344 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.

Clarkson also holds the #29 spot on the Best Colleges in New York ranking.

See all of the rankings for Clarkson University.

Is It Hard to Get Into Clarkson?

78% Acceptance Rate
43% Of Accepted Are Women
58% Submit SAT Scores

Acceptance Rate

Clarkson University has an acceptance rate of 78%, which makes it somewhat selective. Make sure it's not the only school you apply to, even if it's your school of choice. Whether you get in or not will largely depend on how you compare to other applicants.

Average Test Scores

About 58% of students accepted to Clarkson submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 580 and 680. Math scores were between 610 and 690.

SAT Reading and Writing Scores for Clarkson University  ( 580 to 680 )
200
800

SAT Math Scores for Clarkson University  ( 610 to 690 )
200
800
Clarkson received ACT scores from 12% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT Composite scores ranged between 25 and 30.

ACT Composite Scores for Clarkson University  ( 25 to 30 )
1
36

Learn more about Clarkson University admissions.

Clarkson University Faculty

14 to 1 Student to Faculty
96% Full Time Teachers

Student to Faculty Ratio

With a student to faculty ratio of 14 to 1, Clarkson University is about average in this regard as the nationwide rate is 15 to 1. While this does not translate directly to class size, it's a good indicator of how much time professors will have to spend with their students on a one-on-one basis.

Percent of Full-Time Faculty

When estimating how much access students will have to their teachers, some people like to look at what percentage of faculty members are full time. This is because part-time teachers may not have as much time to spend on campus as their full-time counterparts.

The full-time faculty percentage at Clarkson University is 96%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.

Full-Time Faculty Percent  96 out of 100
0
100

Retention and Graduation Rates at Clarkson University

83% Freshmen Retention
63% On-Time Graduation Rate

Freshmen Retention Rate

The freshmen retention rate of 83% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like Clarkson 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.

Freshmen Retention Rate  83 out of 100
0
100

Graduation Rate

Students are considered to have graduated on time if they finish their studies within four years. At Clarkson the on-time graduation rate of first-time, full-time students is 63%. That is great when compared to the national average of 33.3%

On-Time Graduation Rate  63 out of 100
0
100

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

Clarkson University Undergraduate Student Diversity

2,845 Full-Time Undergraduates
15.8% Racial-Ethnic Minorities*
30.8% Percent Women

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 2,905 undergraduates at Clarkson with 2,845 being full-time and 60 being part-time.

How Much Does Clarkson University Cost?

$31,114 Net Price
70% Take Out Loans
$36,600 Total Student Loans
The overall average net price of Clarkson is $31,114. 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 Clarkson

$0-30 K$30K-48K$48-75$75-110K$110K +
$17,972$21,945$25,980$29,584$36,207

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 Clarkson, 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 Clarkson, approximately 70% of students took out student loans averaging $9,150 a year. That adds up to $36,600 over four years for those students.

Get more details about paying for Clarkson University.

How Much Money Do Clarkson Graduates Make?

$89,696 Avg Salary of Grads
High Earnings Boost
Although some majors pay more than others, students who graduate from Clarkson with a bachelor's degree go on to jobs where they make an average salary of $89,696 in their early years. This is good news for future Clarkson graduates since it is 82% more than the average college graduate's salary of $49,219 per year.

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See which majors at Clarkson University make the most money.

Location of Clarkson University

New York State
2,845 Full-Time Undergraduates
Town Campus Setting
Clarkson University is a private not-for-profit institution situated in Potsdam, New York. Potsdam is a good match for students who enjoy small-town life.

Get more details about the location of Clarkson University.

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Contact details for Clarkson are given below.

Contact Details
Address:8 Clarkson Ave, Potsdam, NY 13699
Phone:315-268-6400
Website:https://www.clarkson.edu/

Clarkson University Majors

51 Majors With Completions
2,458 Undergraduate Degrees
2,458 Graduate Degrees
During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 51 majors graduated from Clarkson University. Of these students, 2,458 received undergraduate degrees and 2,458 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 MajorsBachelor’s DegreesAverage Salary of Graduates
Mechanical Engineering180$73,168
Engineering-Related Fields138$74,407
Electrical Engineering111$77,940
Civil Engineering104$70,136
Business Administration & Management97$65,887
Chemical Engineering52$75,887
General Biology43$39,807
Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering41$71,783
Rehabilitation & Therapeutic Professions41NA
Health & Medical Administrative Services34NA

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

Online Learning at Clarkson

19% Take At Least One Class Online
8% Take All Classes Online

Online courses area 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.

In 2022-2023, 716 students took at least one online class at Clarkson University. This is a decrease from the 859 students who took online classes the previous year.

YearTook at Least One Online ClassTook All Classes Online
2022-2023716281
2021-2022859244
2020-20213,329779
2018-2019741252

Learn more about online learning at Clarkson University.

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

Curious on how these schools stack up against Clarkson? 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

More about our data sources and methodologies.

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