by our College Data Analytics Team
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.
Grinnell College was awarded 7 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is social sciences.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
Grinnell is ranked #318 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.
Grinnell is also ranked #4 out of 37 schools in Iowa.
Grinnell College has a very low acceptance rate of 11%, 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 Grinnell just in case you don't make the cut.
About 28% of students accepted to Grinnell submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 680 and 750. Math scores were between 700 and 780.
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 Grinnell it is much better at 9 to 1. That's good news for students who want to interact more on a personal level with their teachers.
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 Grinnell College is 80%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
Grinnell College has a freshmen retention rate of 93%. 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.
Students are considered to have graduated on time if they finish their studies within four years. At Grinnell the on-time graduation rate of first-time, full-time students is 81%. That is great when compared to the national average of 33.3%
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Grinnell College.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 1,493 undergraduates at Grinnell with 1,459 being full-time and 34 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $9,158 | $7,615 | $9,760 | $16,968 | $35,578 |
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 Grinnell, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.
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 Grinnell, approximately 15% of students took out student loans averaging $7,707 a year. That adds up to $30,828 over four years for those students.
Get more details about the location of Grinnell College.
Contact details for Grinnell are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 1121 Park Street, Grinnell, IA 50112-1690 |
| Phone: | 641-269-4000 |
| Website: | www.grinnell.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Computer Science | 56 | $84,449 |
| Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology | 48 | $38,598 |
| Mathematics | 48 | NA |
| Economics | 46 | $46,791 |
| General Biology | 40 | $37,170 |
| Political Science & Government | 38 | $36,662 |
| Child Development & Psychology | 33 | $28,507 |
| General English Literature | 30 | NA |
| Romance Languages | 30 | $28,691 |
| Fine & Studio Arts | 26 | $20,111 |
If you’re considering Grinnell College, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against Grinnell? 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!
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.