by our College Data Analytics Team
College Factual recognizes the best colleges and universities in its annual rankings. These rankings include categories for best overall colleges, best colleges for each major, best value schools, and much more.
Saint Mary's College of California was awarded 43 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is liberal arts general studies.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
SMC is ranked #148 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 10% of all schools in the nation. This is an improvement over the previous year, when SMC held the #188 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.
SMC also holds the #20 spot on the Best Colleges in California ranking.
See all of the rankings for Saint Mary's College of California.
The acceptance rate at Saint Mary's College of California is 88%, which is higher than many other schools to which you may be applying. But don't think getting into SMC is a sure thing. The admissions staff is still going to review your application to see if you are a good fit for the school.
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 SMC 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.
In addition to the student to faculty ratio, some people look at what percentage of faculty members are full-time as a sign of how much time professors will be able to spend with their students. This is because part-time teachers may not be be on campus as much as their full-time counterparts.
The full-time faculty percentage at Saint Mary's College of California is 21%. This is lower than the national average of 47%.
Saint Mary's College of California has a freshmen retention rate of 86%. 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.
The on-time graduation rate for someone pursuing a bachelor's degree is typically four years. This rate at SMC for first-time, full-time students is 63%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Saint Mary’s College of California.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 2,468 undergraduates at SMC with 2,308 being full-time and 160 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $23,731 | $21,930 | $23,463 | $22,610 | $38,193 |
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 SMC, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.
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 SMC, approximately 45% of students took out student loans averaging $6,934 a year. That adds up to $27,736 over four years for those students.
Get more details about paying for Saint Mary’s College of California.
See which majors at Saint Mary’s College of California make the most money.
Get more details about the location of Saint Mary’s College of California.
Contact details for SMC are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 1928 Saint Marys Road, Moraga, CA 94575 |
| Phone: | 925-631-4000 |
| Website: | https://www.stmarys-ca.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Business Administration & Management | 201 | NA |
| General Business/Commerce | 172 | $46,958 |
| History | 91 | NA |
| Liberal Arts General Studies | 79 | $56,094 |
| Accounting | 49 | $66,628 |
| Health & Physical Education | 45 | $34,444 |
| General Biology | 44 | NA |
| Student Counseling | 40 | NA |
| General Psychology | 40 | $28,018 |
| Communication & Media Studies | 36 | $35,356 |
Online learning options are becoming more and more popular at American colleges and universities. Online classes are great for students who have busy schedules or for those who just want to study on their own time.
In 2022-2023, 86 students took at least one online class at Saint Mary's College of California. This is an increase from the 53 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 86 | 56 |
| 2021-2022 | 53 | 34 |
| 2020-2021 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018-2019 | 0 | 0 |
Learn more about online learning at Saint Mary’s College of California.
If you’re considering Saint Mary’s College of California, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against SMC? 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.