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.
Washington and Lee University was awarded 14 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is accounting.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
Washington and Lee is ranked #77 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 5% of all schools in the nation. This is an improvement over the previous year, when Washington and Lee held the #83 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.
Washington and Lee is also ranked #3 out of 57 schools in Virginia.
Even if you have the best grades and high test scores, that may not be enough to get into Washington and Lee since the school has one of the most selective in the country. Its acceptance rate is a mere 17%, so there's no shame if you don't get in. Be sure to apply to other schools just in case.
About 28% of students accepted to Washington and Lee submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 700 and 753. Math scores were between 710 and 780.
The student to faculty ratio at Washington and Lee is an impressive 7 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 Washington and Lee University is 88%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
Washington and Lee University has a freshmen retention rate of 98%. 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 Washington and Lee for first-time, full-time students is 91%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Washington and Lee University.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 1,822 undergraduates at Washington and Lee with 1,821 being full-time and 1 being part-time.
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 Washington and Lee, 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 Washington and Lee, approximately 18% of students took out student loans averaging $7,714 a year. That adds up to $30,856 over four years for those students.
Get more details about paying for Washington and Lee University.
See which majors at Washington and Lee University make the most money.
Get more details about the location of Washington and Lee University.
Contact details for Washington and Lee are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 204 West Washington Street, Lexington, VA 24450-2116 |
| Phone: | 540-458-8400 |
| Website: | www.wlu.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Law | 119 | NA |
| Business Administration & Management | 94 | $76,627 |
| Economics | 69 | $71,737 |
| Political Science & Government | 69 | NA |
| Fine & Studio Arts | 69 | NA |
| Accounting | 37 | $81,625 |
| Child Development & Psychology | 28 | NA |
| Journalism | 26 | NA |
| General English Literature | 26 | NA |
| Mathematics | 26 | NA |
If you’re considering Washington and Lee University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against Washington and Lee? 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.