Dickinson College
Carlisle, Pennsylvania | Admissions Phone: 717-245-1231
E-mail: admissions@dickinson.edu | Website: www.dickinson.edu
ADMISSION
Admission Rate: 49%
Admission Rate - Men: 47%
Admission Rate - Women: 50%
EA Admission Rate: Not Offered
ED Admission Rate: 68%
Admission Rate (5-Year Trend): +5%
ED Admission Rate (5-Year Trend): -1%
% of Admits Attending (Yield): 21%
Transfer Admission Rate: 25%
# Offered Wait List: 644
# Accepted Wait List: 216
# Admitted Wait List: 9
SAT Reading/Writing (Middle 50%): 610-690
SAT Math (Middle 50%): 590-700
ACT Composite (Middle 50%): 27-31
Testing Policy: Test Optional
SAT Superscore: Yes
ACT Superscore: Yes
% Graduated in Top 10% of HS Class: 41%
% Graduated in Top 25% of HS Class: 74%
% Graduated in Top 50% of HS Class: 96%
ENROLLMENT
Total Undergraduate Enrollment: 2,399
% Part-Time: 2%
% Male: 42%
% Female: 58%
% Out-of-State: 77%
% Fraternity: 4%
% Sorority: 25%
% On-Campus (Freshman): 100%
% On-Campus (All Undergraduate): 100%
% African-American: 5%
% Asian: 4%
% Hispanic: 9%
% White: 64%
% Other: 3%
% Race or Ethnicity Unknown: 1%
% International: 15%
% Low-Income: 11%
ACADEMICS
Student-to-Faculty Ratio: 9:1
% of Classes Under 20: 75%
% of Classes Under 40: 99%
% Full-Time Faculty: 78%
% Full-Time Faculty w/ Terminal Degree: 95%
Top Programs
Bioloy
Economics
Environmental Studies
Foreign Languages
HIstory
International Business and Management
International Studies
Retention Rate: 91%
4-Year Graduation Rate: 81%
6-Year Graduation Rate: 84%
Curricular Flexibility: Somewhat Flexible
Academic Rating: 
FINANCIAL
Institutional Type: Private
In-State Tuition: $55,948
Out-of-State Tuition: $55,948
Room & Board: $14,176
Required Fees: $575
Books & Supplies: $1,250
Avg. Need-Based Aid: $42,448
Avg. % of Need Met: 100%
Avg. Merit-Based Aid: $12,685
% Receiving Merit-Based Aid: 18%
Avg. Cumulative Debt: $26,977
% of Students Borrowing: 56%
CAREER
Who Recruits
1. Gartner
2. Amazon
3. Booz Allen Hamilton
4. PwC
5. PNC
Notable Internships
1. BlackRock
2. IBM
3. Cushman & Wakefield
Top Industries
1. Business
2. Education
3. Operations
4. Social Services
5. Sales
Top Employers
1. US Army
2. Deloitte
3. IBM
4. Morgan Stanley
5. JPMorgan Chase
Where Alumni Work
1. New York City
2. Philadelphia
3. Washington, DC
4. Boston
5. Harrisburg, PA
Median Earnings
College Scorecard (Early Career): $57,400
EOP (Early Career): $55,100
PayScale (Mid-Career): $100,100
RANKINGS
Forbes: 120
Money: 230
U.S. News: 46, Liberal Arts Colleges
Wall Street Journal/THE: 100
Washington Monthly: 49, Liberal Arts Colleges
Inside the Classroom
Set in the small town of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Dickinson College is a liberal arts school with a strong academic reputation that dates back to the earliest days of the United States. In fact, it was founded the same week the United States signed the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War. Today, the 2,400 undergraduate students who call Dickinson home are an increasingly diverse group, both in terms of academic/career interests and demographically. In recent years the school has doubled its rate of international students to 13 percent and raised the presence of underrepresented minorities from 15 percent in 2013 to 21 percent in 2017. The school does have a notable gender gap to the tune of a 60/40 split in favor of women.
Freshmen are matched with a professor-advisor and engage in a mandatory first-year seminar intended to hone critical thinking, analysis, and research skills. From there, students must embark on an extensive trek through required coursework in quantitative reasoning, the humanities and arts, the social sciences, laboratory science, foreign language, and four physical education blocks. There are additional boxes to check in the areas of US diversity, global diversity, and a sustainability course.
As students immerse themselves in one of forty-four areas of concentration, Dickinson supports them with a 9:1 student-to-faculty ratio and average class size of fifteen with 75 percent of classes being capped at nineteen students. This type of intimacy allows the school to advertise that “Not only will you have the opportunity to conduct advanced research as an undergraduate that most wouldn’t experience until graduate school, you’ll also have the chance to work alongside faculty in the process.” The majority of students also elect to venture to other continents as part of their undergraduate experience. Offering study abroad opportunities in thirty-nine locations in twenty-four countries across six continents, Dickinson enjoys a 62 percent participation rate.
By discipline, the greatest number of degrees are conferred in the social sciences (27 percent); business (10 percent); biology (9 percent); and area, ethnic, and gender studies (8 percent). The college’s foreign language program that features thirteen offerings—including Arabic, Hebrew, and Portuguese—is recognized as one of the top programs in the country. International studies, history, and environmental studies also have particularly strong reputations. Dickinson students are known as a globetrotting and service-oriented bunch. Thus, it is fitting that the college is a leading producer of Fulbright scholars and Peace Corps volunteers.
Outside the Classroom
Dickinson is located in central Pennsylvania about twenty miles from the state capital of Harrisburg. Carlisle may be a small town, yet there are a reasonable number of nearby shopping/dining options, including dozens of restaurants within walking distance. The school’s small town location means that a good deal of social life takes place on campus where literally 100 percent of students reside in college-owned housing. Greek life has a strong but not dominant presence with only 4 percent of men joining fraternities but 25 percent of women joining sororities. More than one hundred student clubs exist with the highest concentrations in the performing arts and club sports. For those serious about athletics, the Red Devils compete in NCAA Division III in eleven men’s and twelve women’s sports. Environmental sustainability is important to the administration and students alike, and with its own organic farm and pledge to be climate neutral by 2020, the college is regularly ranked as one of the top eco-friendly colleges in the country.
Career Services
The Career Center has seven professional employees (not counting the two administrative assistants) who play advising, pre-professional counseling, and employer relations roles. That works out to a 343:1 student-to-advisor ratio, which is about average compared to other schools featured in this guide. One counselor is dedicated to pre-health advising and another guides pre-law students.
Dickinson does not host its own career fairs but does endorse two nearby gatherings, the Capital Region Internship Fair at Penn State Harrisburg and the Not-for-Profit Networking Fair in Philadelphia. However, there are other areas where this office excels. For example, a tremendous 94 percent of students completed an internship, service-learning, or research apprenticeship at some point over their four years of study. In the summer of 2019, more than 400 students completed internships and summer research experiences in thirty states and twenty-one countries. In 2016, the college also launched an externship program in which students can spend between two and ten days over winter break shadowing alums in their workplaces. Unfortunately, only a tiny percentage of alumni report finding their job directly because of the Career Center. Less than 1 percent of 2005-2010 graduates, surveyed in 2015, cited a Dickinson Career Center event as a factor in finding employment. Less than 2 percent (per category) were assisted by an on-campus interview, a job fair, or school-provided online resources. To be fair, there is evidence that the office has made great strides since that time.
Professional Outcomes
One year after graduating, 93 percent of Dickinsonians have found jobs, full-time volunteer work, or have enrolled in graduate school. The most popular industries are, in order, business and industry, education, health and medical services, and nonprofits. Red Devils head to a wide range of organizations/employers with multiple 2018 grads headed to the US Army, the Peace Corps, Teach for America and, on the other end of the spectrum, the Vanguard Group. Many other well-known financial, pharmaceutical, and consulting companies are represented on the list of 2018 graduate destinations as are a host of other nonprofit organizations. Across all graduating years, companies employing more than twenty-five Dickinson alumni include Deloitte, IBM, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Merck, EY, PNC, PwC, Google, and Amazon. The median salary for a Dickinson alum at age thirty-four is $55,000, slightly less than graduates of rival Franklin & Marshall. It’s interesting that more alumni can be found in New York City than in Pennsylvania.
Within five years of receiving their diplomas, 55-60 percent of recent grads have entered or finished graduate school. For the Class of 2018, the majority of graduate school-bound new alums found homes in state universities; however, a fair number of prestigious acceptances were sprinkled in including Penn, Tufts, Emory, and Carnegie Mellon (computer science), Johns Hopkins, Columbia, UVA, and NYU. Law school applicants are accepted at a rate of 97 percent with some applicants finding success in Carlisle at Penn State’s Dickinson Law School, and two 2018 grads are now attending Notre Dame Law School. Of students recommended for medical school by the college, 75 percent were accepted into at least one institution.
Admission
From 2013-2018 as the highly rated liberal arts admissions world became increasingly more hyper competitive, Dickinson experienced little change. The admit rate in 2018 was 49 percent, slightly friendlier than the 44 percent in 2013. Standardized test scores for admitted students have also remained fairly constant, and the majority do submit them (60 percent submit SATs and 27 percent submit ACTs) even though the school went test-optional a long time ago. The mid-50 percent range on the ACT is 27-31 and 1200-1390 on the SAT. The same goes for class rank, which in 2018-19 saw 41 percent of freshmen hail from the top 10 percent of their high school cohort, and 74 percent finish in the top 25 percent; only 4 percent of this group did not finish in the top half of their class.
Dickinson shows love to students who love them. Sixty-eight percent of early decision applicants were offered admission in 2018, which was a reduction from the previous year. It is unusual for a college to include “demonstrated interest” as one of the most important factors in admissions decisions, but Dickinson does exactly that. With a yield rate of only 21 percent, the vast majority of those accepted into the college elect to attend another institution. A handful of other soft factors also sit atop the list: volunteer work, talent/ability, and character/personal qualities. Despite its status as a highly selective institution, intelligent students with a blemish still have a chance to find a home here. With its test-optional policy, those who exceled in the classroom but struggled on Saturday mornings with a No. 2 pencil in their hand are still in the running as are those with the opposite imperfection—strong SAT-takers who bloomed late as serious-minded students.
Worth Your Money?
An impressively high 61 percent of Dickinson students are awarded some level of need-based aid. While not all see 100 percent of their demonstrated need met, the majority do, and the average annual grant is $42,448. An additional 18 percent of undergraduates receive annual merit aid awards of $12,685, helping to reduce the total cost of attendance that is estimated at over $73k per year. Thanks to that assistance, the amount of debt incurred by the average Dickinson student is less than that of the average college student in the United States. If you were borrowing $100k+ to study the liberal arts, we would caution against selecting this school without first exploring more cost-effective options. However, for those taking on modest amounts of student loans, this is a college worth attending for the intimate class environment and solid graduate outcomes.