Macalester College's admit rate has fallen 6.1 percentage points across the 13 reported years on file.
The headline numbers, drawn from CDS sections A–H.
Per-cycle Common Data Set values. Enrolled is first-year matriculants (CDS B1), not total undergraduate population. Blank cells mean the field was not published in that year's source CDS.
| Year | Admit rate | Enrolled | 6-yr grad | Retention | SAT (50th) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-2026 | 28.1% | 534 | 91.1% | 91.6% | 1,420 |
| 2024-2025 | 28.5% | 560 | — | — | — |
| 2023-2024 | 28.2% | 518 | 90.0% | 95.0% | — |
| 2022-2023 | 28.4% | 552 | — | — | — |
| 2021-2022 | 75.9% | 571 | 89.7% | 95.6% | — |
Cross-admits and statistical look-alikes, surfaced from the CollegeNumbers peer model.
Comparative observations derived from this school's reported CDS values and from IPEDS / College Scorecard reference data. Every claim is grounded in a number — no editorial overlay.
Admit rate has tightened 47.8 percentage points over 5 reporting cycles.
Macalester College's admit rate fell from 75.9% (2021-2022) to 28.1% (2025-2026) — a 47.8 pp drop. Year-over-year: 75.9 → 28.4 → 28.2 → 28.5 → 28.1. A snapshot of the current year alone would hide this structural shift.
Six-year graduation rate exceeds the national median by 35 percentage points.
Macalester College's 91.1% six-year graduation rate exceeds the national 4-year-institution median of 56.3% (per IPEDS, n=1555) by 34.8 pp.
Cross-admit cohort spans an unusually wide selectivity range.
The schools Macalester College applicants most commonly also apply to range from 7.1% admit to 40.2% admit — a 33.1 pp band. A reasonable read: applicants choose by region or program fit rather than selectivity tier alone.
Sources: each school's officially-published Common Data Set; IPEDS / College Scorecard for federal comparisons. Methodology →
Compare every CDS field — admissions, aid, outcomes — side by side.
Open in CollegeNumbers compareThe Common Data Set is a standardized reporting form U.S. colleges file annually — sections A through J covering admissions selectivity, enrollment, aid, faculty resources, and outcomes. CollegeNumbers extracts every value directly from each school's officially published CDS PDF, xlsx, docx, or HTML, then normalizes into a unified schema.
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