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Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Data & Information Overview

76 awards Ranking Badges
Great Price Value for Your Money
65% Acceptance Rate
This overview covers the essential stats on Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, including its rankings, majors, diversity, and more.
All you need to do to learn more about a stat is click on its tile, and you’ll be taken to another page that analyzes that data more closely. Also, you can use the links below to scroll to any section of this page.

How Well Is Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Ranked?

#64 Best Colleges in Nation
#6 Best Colleges in NY
Engineering Technologies Highest Ranked Major
Quality Badge

2025 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.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute was awarded 76 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

According to College Factual's 2025 analysis, RPI is ranked #64 out of 2,152 schools in the nation that were analyzed for overall quality. This lands it a coveted spot in the top 5% of all colleges and universities in the country. This is an improvement over the previous year, when RPI held the #106 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.

RPI also holds the #6 spot on the Best Colleges in New York ranking.

See all of the rankings for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Is It Hard to Get Into RPI?

65% Acceptance Rate
32% Of Accepted Are Women
52% Submit SAT Scores

Acceptance Rate

If you're applying to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute you'll face some tough competition, since the school's acceptance rate is only 65%. Definitely don't wait until the last minute to submit your application, since applying early may be in your favor.

Average Test Scores

About 52% of students accepted to RPI submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 660 and 740. Math scores were between 700 and 780.

SAT Reading and Writing Scores for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute  ( 660 to 740 )
200
800

SAT Math Scores for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute  ( 700 to 780 )
200
800
RPI received ACT scores from 15% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT Composite scores ranged between 30 and 34.

ACT Composite Scores for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute  ( 30 to 34 )
1
36

Learn more about Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute admissions.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Faculty

12 to 1 Student to Faculty
86% Full Time Teachers

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 RPI it is much better at 12 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 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is 86%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.

Full-Time Faculty Percent  86 out of 100
0
100

Retention and Graduation Rates at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

89% Freshmen Retention
74% On-Time Graduation Rate

Freshmen Retention Rate

The freshmen retention rate of 89% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 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  89 out of 100
0
100

Graduation Rate

Students are considered to have graduated on time if they finish their studies within four years. At RPI the on-time graduation rate of first-time, full-time students is 74%. That is great when compared to the national average of 33.3%

On-Time Graduation Rate  74 out of 100
0
100

Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Undergraduate Student Diversity

6,262 Full-Time Undergraduates
36.7% Racial-Ethnic Minorities*
31.2% Percent Women

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 6,283 undergraduates at RPI with 6,262 being full-time and 21 being part-time.

How Much Does Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Cost?

$34,399 Net Price
57% Take Out Loans
$40,368 Total Student Loans
The overall average net price of RPI is $34,399. 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 RPI

$0-30 K $30K-48K $48-75 $75-110K $110K +
$21,439 $19,848 $27,920 $31,807 $42,335

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 RPI, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.

Student Loan Debt

It's not uncommon for college students to take out loans to pay for school. In fact, almost 66% of students nationwide depend at least partially on loans. At RPI, approximately 57% of students took out student loans averaging $10,092 a year. That adds up to $40,368 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at RPI 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 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

How Much Money Do RPI Graduates Make?

$102,051 Avg Salary of Grads
High Earnings Boost
Although some majors pay more than others, students who graduate from RPI with a bachelor's degree go on to jobs where they make an average salary of $102,051 in their early years. That's great news for RPI students since it is 107% more than the average college graduate's salary of $49,219 per year.

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See which majors at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute make the most money.

Location of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

New York State
6,262 Full-Time Undergraduates
Small City Campus Setting
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is a private not-for-profit institution situated in Troy, New York. The surrounding area of the school is a good match for students who enjoy city life.

Get more details about the location of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

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Contact details for RPI are given below.

Contact Details
Address: 110 8Th St, Troy, NY 12180-3590
Phone: 518-276-6000
Website: www.rpi.edu/

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Majors

58 Majors With Completions
4,142 Undergraduate Degrees
4,142 Graduate Degrees
During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 58 majors graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Of these students, 4,142 received undergraduate degrees and 4,142 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 322 $104,943
Mechanical Engineering 264 $73,833
Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering 146 $73,213
Electrical Engineering 134 $83,412
Biomedical Engineering 98 $74,427
Computer Engineering Technology 91 $94,722
Mathematics 90 $80,196
Chemical Engineering 86 $78,263
Business Administration & Management 84 $47,925
Civil Engineering 82 $71,790

Learn more about the majors offered at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute along with which ones have the highest average starting salaries.

Learn more about online learning at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

If you’re considering Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.

Curious on how these schools stack up against RPI? 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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