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Lake Forest College Complete Information Guide

Fair Price Value for Your Money
57% Acceptance Rate
2% Student Loan Default Rate

If you want to know more about Lake Forest College, such as what majors does it offer, how diverse it is, how well it ranks, and more, this is your one-stop resource.

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* Rankings

How Does Lake Forest College Stack Up?

#492 Best Colleges in Nation
#23 Best Colleges in IL
Lake Forest College ranking badge

2026 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.

Overall Quality

College Factual ranked Lake Forest as #492 out of 3,449 colleges and universities in the country on its 2026 Best Colleges list.

Within the state, Lake Forest holds the #23 spot on the Best Colleges in Illinois ranking.

See all of the rankings for Lake Forest College.

What Are the Admission Requirements for Lake Forest College?

57% Acceptance Rate
60% Of Accepted Are Women
16% Submit SAT Scores

Getting Accepted

The acceptance rate at Lake Forest College is a competitive 57%, so make sure you take your application seriously when putting it together. Even leaving out a minor detail could be a reason to move you to the rejection pile.

Standardized Test Scores

About 16% of students accepted to Lake Forest submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 600 and 713. Math scores were between 590 and 680.

SAT Reading and Writing Scores for Lake Forest College  ( 600 to 713 )
200
800
SAT Math Scores for Lake Forest College  ( 590 to 680 )
200
800

Lake Forest received ACT scores from 10% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT Composite scores ranged between 28 and 32.

ACT Composite Scores for Lake Forest College  ( 28 to 32 )
1
36

Learn more about Lake Forest College admissions.

Teaching Staff at Lake Forest College

13 to 1 Student to Faculty
60% Full Time Teachers

Class Sizes

With a student to faculty ratio of 13 to 1, Lake Forest College 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.

Full-Time Instructors

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 Lake Forest College is 60%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.

Full-Time Faculty Percent  60 out of 100
0
100

Academic Performance at Lake Forest College

86% Freshmen Retention
70% On-Time Graduation Rate

Freshman Success

The freshmen retention rate of 86% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like Lake Forest 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  86 out of 100
0
100

Graduation Rate

Students are considered to have graduated on time if they finish their studies within four years. At Lake Forest the on-time graduation rate of first-time, full-time students is 70%. That is great when compared to the national average of 33.3%.

On-Time Graduation Rate  70 out of 100
0
100

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

Student Demographics at Lake Forest College

1,782 Undergraduate Students
30.7% Racial-Ethnic Minorities*
56.9% Percent Women

The current enrollment includes 1,782 undergraduates at Lake Forest.

Get more detailed information on the diversity at Lake Forest College.

What Does Lake Forest College Cost?

$16,772 Net Price
67% Take Out Loans
$27,624 Total Student Loans

The average net price of Lake Forest 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 Lake Forest

$0-30 K $30K-48K $48-75 $75-110K $110K +
$19,067 $19,086 $23,694 $28,799 $34,614

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 Lake Forest, 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 Lake Forest, approximately 67% of students took out student loans averaging $6,906 a year. That adds up to $27,624 over four years for those students. The student loan default rate is 2.1%. 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 Lake Forest College.

How Much Money Do Lake Forest College Graduates Make?

$61,825 Avg Salary of Grads
High Earnings Boost

Yearly salaries vary depending on what you major in, but on average, bachelor’s degree recipients from Lake Forest College make around $61,825 per year during the early years of their employment. That’s great news for Lake Forest College students since it is 26% more than the average college graduate’s salary of $49,219 per year.

See which majors at Lake Forest College make the most money.

Location of Lake Forest College

Illinois State
1,782 Undergraduate Students
Suburb Campus Setting

Lake Forest College is a private not-for-profit institution located in Lake Forest, Illinois. Lake Forest is a good match for students who enjoy the safety and convenience of the suburbs. Get more details about the location of Lake Forest College.

Location of Lake Forest College

Contact information for Lake Forest College can be found below.

Contact Details
Address: 555 N Sheridan Road, Lake Forest, IL 60045-2338
Phone: 8472343100
Website: www.lakeforest.edu
Facebook: www.facebook.com/lakeforestcollege
Twitter: www.twitter.com/LFCollege

Lake Forest College Majors

19 Majors With Completions
1,106 Undergraduate Degrees

During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 19 majors graduated from Lake Forest College. The following table lists the most popular undergraduate majors along with the average salary graduates from those majors make.

Most Popular Majors Completions Average Salary of Graduates
Multi-Disciplinary Studies 553 NA
Business & Commerce 65 $39,515
Child Development & Psychology 48 NA
Neurobiology & Neurosciences 35 $35,544
General Biology 32 NA
Communication & Media Studies 31 $45,662
Economics 26 $58,782
Political Science & Government 26 $44,630
Sociology & Anthropology 25 NA
General English Literature 23 $33,373

Learn more about the majors offered at Lake Forest College along with which ones have the highest average starting salaries.

Distance Learning at Lake Forest

8% Take At Least One Class 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.

148 students took at least one online class at Lake Forest College.

Learn more about online learning at Lake Forest College.

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

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