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.
Macalester College was awarded 12 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is biological & biomedical sciences.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
According to College Factual's 2025 analysis, Macalester is ranked #336 out of 2,152 schools in the nation that were analyzed for overall quality. This puts it in the top 20% of all schools in the nation.
Macalester also holds the #8 spot on the Best Colleges in Minnesota ranking.
Macalester College has a very low acceptance rate of 28%, 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 Macalester just in case you don't make the cut.
About 33% of students accepted to Macalester submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 670 and 750. Math scores were between 670 and 750.
The student to faculty ratio at Macalester is an impressive 10 to 1. That's quite good when you compare it to the national average of 15 to 1. This is a good sign that students at the school will have more opportunities for one-on-one interactions with their professors.
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 Macalester College is 81%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
Macalester College has a freshmen retention rate of 91%. 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 Macalester for first-time, full-time students is 88%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Macalester College.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 2,049 undergraduates at Macalester with 2,012 being full-time and 37 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $12,933 | $14,488 | $17,913 | $25,149 | $40,691 |
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 Macalester, 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 Macalester, approximately 47% of students took out student loans averaging $6,714 a year. That adds up to $26,856 over four years for those students.
Get more details about the location of Macalester College.
Contact details for Macalester are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 1600 Grand Ave, Saint Paul, MN 55105-1899 |
| Phone: | 651-696-6000 |
| Website: | www.macalester.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Computer Information Systems | 58 | $81,964 |
| Political Science & Government | 56 | $39,439 |
| General Biology | 52 | $35,616 |
| Economics | 49 | $59,752 |
| Mathematics | 48 | $57,166 |
| International Studies | 38 | $21,176 |
| Natural Resources Conservation | 38 | $29,559 |
| Child Development & Psychology | 33 | $38,027 |
| Geography and Environmental Studies | 29 | NA |
| Chemistry | 21 | NA |
If you’re considering Macalester College, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against Macalester? 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.