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Lake Forest College Data & Information Overview

108 awards Ranking Badges
Great Price Value for Your Money
64% Acceptance Rate
Get the facts about Lake Forest College. Learn how it ranks, what majors it offers, how diverse it is, and much more.
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How Well Is Lake Forest College Ranked?

#289 Best Colleges in Nation
#13 Best Colleges in IL
Communication & Media Studies Highest Ranked Major
Quality Badge

2024 Rankings

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.

Lake Forest College was awarded 108 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is communication & media studies.

Explore Best Ranked Schools for You

Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.

Overall Quality

Lake Forest is ranked #289 out of 2,217 schools in the nation for overall quality on College Factual's 2024 Best Colleges list. This puts it in the top 15% of all schools in the nation. This is an improvement over the previous year, when Lake Forest held the #306 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.

Lake Forest also holds the #13 spot on the Best Colleges in Illinois ranking.

See all of the rankings for Lake Forest College.

Is It Hard to Get Into Lake Forest?

64% Acceptance Rate
58% Of Accepted Are Women
26% Submit SAT Scores

Acceptance Rate

If you're applying to Lake Forest College you'll face some tough competition, since the school's acceptance rate is only 64%. Definitely don't wait until the last minute to submit your application, since applying early may be in your favor.

Average Test Scores

About 26% 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 570 and 665. Math scores were between 560 and 680.

SAT Reading and Writing Scores for Lake Forest College  ( 570 to 665 )
200
800

SAT Math Scores for Lake Forest College  ( 560 to 680 )
200
800
Lake Forest received ACT scores from 15% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT Composite scores ranged between 26 and 31.

ACT Composite Scores for Lake Forest College  ( 26 to 31 )
1
36

Learn more about Lake Forest College admissions.

Lake Forest College Faculty

12 to 1 Student to Faculty
59% 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 Lake Forest 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

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 Lake Forest College is 59%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.

Full-Time Faculty Percent  59 out of 100
0
100

Retention and Graduation Rates at Lake Forest College

87% Freshmen Retention
71% On-Time Graduation Rate

Freshmen Retention Rate

The freshmen retention rate of 87% 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  87 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 71%. That is great when compared to the national average of 33.3%

On-Time Graduation Rate  71 out of 100
0
100

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

Lake Forest College Undergraduate Student Diversity

1,526 Full-Time Undergraduates
30.9% Racial-Ethnic Minorities*
59.4% Percent Women

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 1,558 undergraduates at Lake Forest with 1,526 being full-time and 32 being part-time.

How Much Does Lake Forest College Cost?

$23,991 Net Price
43% Take Out Loans
$29,564 Total Student Loans
The overall average net price of Lake Forest is $23,991. 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 +
$15,933 $16,238 $19,318 $28,675 $30,907

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 Lake Forest, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.

Student Loan 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 43% of students took out student loans averaging $7,391 a year. That adds up to $29,564 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at Lake Forest is 1.3%. 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 Graduates Make?

$59,021 Avg Salary of Grads
High Earnings Boost
Although some majors pay more than others, students who graduate from Lake Forest with a bachelor's degree go on to jobs where they make an average salary of $59,021 in their early years. This is good news for future Lake Forest graduates since it is 39% more than the average college graduate's salary of $42,485 per year.

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

Location of Lake Forest College

Illinois State
1,526 Full-Time Undergraduates
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.

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Contact details for Lake Forest are given below.

Contact Details
Address: 555 N Sheridan Road, Lake Forest, IL 60045-2338
Phone: 847-234-3100
Website: www.lakeforest.edu/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lakeforestcollege
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/LFCollege

Lake Forest College Majors

34 Majors With Completions
449 Undergraduate Degrees
13 Graduate Degrees
During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 34 majors graduated from Lake Forest College. Of these students, 449 received undergraduate degrees and 13 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
General Business/Commerce 64 $39,515
Child Development & Psychology 46 NA
Economics 32 $58,782
Finance & Financial Management 28 $51,498
Political Science & Government 23 $44,630
Neurobiology & Neurosciences 22 $35,544
Romance Languages 21 $39,945
General English Literature 20 $33,373
Communication & Media Studies 17 $45,662
General Biology 16 NA

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

Online Learning at Lake Forest

4% Take At Least One Class Online

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 2020-2021, 62 students took at least one online class at Lake Forest College. This is a decrease from the 1,583 students who took online classes the previous year.

Year Took at Least One Online Class Took All Classes Online
2020-2021 62 0
2019-2020 1,583 1,583
2018-2019 0 0
2017-2018 0 0
2016-2017 0 0

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

More about our data sources and methodologies.

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