Franklin & Marshall College

Lancaster, Pennsylvania | Admissions Phone: 717-358-3953

E-mail: admissions@fandm.edu | Website: www.fandm.edu

ADMISSION

Admission Rate: 35%

Admission Rate - Men: 31%

Admission Rate - Women: 39%

EA Admission Rate: Not Offered

ED Admission Rate: 58%

Admission Rate (5-Year Trend): -1%

ED Admission Rate (5-Year Trend): -11%

% of Admits Attending (Yield): 26%

Transfer Admission Rate: 38%

# Offered Wait List: 2,106

# Accepted Wait List: N/A

# Admitted Wait List: N/A

SAT Reading/Writing (Middle 50%): 620-690

SAT Math (Middle 50%): 640-750

ACT Composite (Middle 50%): 28-32

Testing Policy: Test Optional

SAT Superscore: Yes

ACT Superscore: Yes

% Graduated in Top 10% of HS Class: 59%

% Graduated in Top 25% of HS Class: 84%

% Graduated in Top 50% of HS Class: 97%

ENROLLMENT

Total Undergraduate Enrollment: 2,309

% Part-Time: 1%

% Male: 45%

% Female: 55%

% Out-of-State: 72%

% Fraternity: 20%

% Sorority: 27%

% On-Campus (Freshman): 100%

% On-Campus (All Undergraduate): 99%

% African-American: 6%

% Asian: 5%

% Hispanic: 10%

% White: 55%

% Other: 2%

% Race or Ethnicity Unknown: 3%

% International: 18%

% Low-Income: 17%

ACADEMICS

Student-to-Faculty Ratio: 9:1

% of Classes Under 20: 68%

% of Classes Under 40: 99%

% Full-Time Faculty: 89%

% Full-Time Faculty w/ Terminal Degree: 95%

Top Programs

Biology

Business, Organizations & Society

Economics

Environmental Studies

Political Science

Public Health

Sociology

Retention Rate: 92%

4-Year Graduation Rate: 78%

6-Year Graduation Rate: 83%

Curricular Flexibility: Somewhat Flexible

Academic Rating: chpt_fig_047

FINANCIAL

Institutional Type: Private

In-State Tuition: $56,450

Out-of-State Tuition: $56,450

Room & Board: $14,050

Required Fees: $300

Books & Supplies: $1,200

Avg. Need-Based Aid: $46,628

Avg. % of Need Met: 100%

Avg. Merit-Based Aid: $5,000

% Receiving Merit-Based Aid: 13%

Avg. Cumulative Debt: $27,149

% of Students Borrowing: 54%

CAREER

Who Recruits

1. W.B. Mason

2. The JDK Group

3. Travelers

4. ScribeAmerica

5. S&T Bank

Notable Internships

1. New Jersey Office of the Governor

2. Acacia Finance

3. Audible

Top Industries

1. Business

2. Education

3. Operations

4. Finance

5. Sales

Top Employers

1. Morgan Stanley

2. Deloitte

3. UBS

4. Vanguard

5. EY

Where Alumni Work

1. New York City

2. Philadelphia

3. Lancaster, PA

4. Washington, DC

5. Boston

Median Earnings

College Scorecard (Early Career): $58,900

EOP (Early Career): $57,800

PayScale (Mid-Career): $109,700

RANKINGS

Forbes: 114

Money: 166

U.S. News: 38, Liberal Arts Colleges

Wall Street Journal/THE: 91 (T)

Washington Monthly: 21, Liberal Arts Colleges

Inside the Classroom

Situated on the pastoral hills of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, most famous for its large Amish community, Franklin & Marshall has carved out its own stellar reputation ever since its two namesake colleges merged in 1853. An undergraduate population of almost 2,300 gets to choose from a generous liberal arts menu that features fifty-nine academic programs. Never content to rest on its laurels, F&M is in the middle of a $200 million fundraising campaign entitled “Now to Next” that is designed to take this already excellent school to even greater heights.

The educational experience at F&M is guided by its “Connections” curriculum, a series of requirements divided into three phases: Introduction, Exploration, and Concentration. Freshmen must take two small, intensive seminar classes that immerse them in the world of intellectual discourse, academic writing, and the art of oral presentation. Next, students tackle courses in the arts, humanities, social and natural sciences, foreign language, and non-Western cultures. As a culminating experience, students complete a capstone project that may involve research alongside a professor.

Franklin & Marshall’s student-faculty ratio is 9:1, and 67 percent of classes have fewer than twenty students enrolled; 29 percent are in the twenty to twenty-nine range. The average classroom contains eighteen students. Juniors are encouraged to spend a semester abroad, and 55 percent oblige, jetting off to locations from Argentina to Vietnam. Grants through the Hackman Scholars program allow approximately seventy-five students to conduct research with faculty each summer. Many more Diplomats research with faculty through other means during the academic year and, by graduation, 35 percent of students have engaged in a research experience.

The greatest number of degrees conferred at the college are in the social sciences (23 percent), interdisciplinary studies (14 percent), biology (12 percent), business (10 percent), physical sciences (7 percent), and psychology (5 percent). Programs in public health and environmental science receive high marks. In addition, students in the official pre-med program and related majors have experienced a high degree of success in earning acceptances into medical school. F&M students are no strangers to prestigious fellowships, having produced six Fulbright Scholars in 2018 and seven in 2017. The Class of 2018 also saw graduates awarded fellowships from Public Policy and International Affairs, Princeton in Asia, and Princeton in Africa.

Outside the Classroom

Lancaster, Pennsylvania, may be notable primarily for its Amish population, but there is a surprisingly large downtown area replete with a full array of shopping, eating, and entertainment options. Those seeking the excitement of a bigger city will have a bit of a car ride ahead of them—Philly is eighty miles away. Being in a relatively remote locale, the center of social life at F&M is on campus where 99 percent of the student population resides. Greek life is a big part of the Franklin and Marshall tradition, dating back to the school’s founding, and it enjoys a robust participation rate of 20 percent for men and 27 percent for women. Participation in athletics is also central to campus life. Being a small school and fielding twenty-seven sports teams, mostly in NCAA Division III, translates to over 30 percent of the student body being comprised of varsity athletes. Outside of sports and frats/sororities, there are roughly one hundred active, student-run organizations that cover everything from a cappella to seven student-run publications. The vast majority of incoming freshmen performed community service in high school, and that practice continues while at F&M through numerous volunteer groups as well as through Greek organizations.

Career Services

The Office of Student and Post Graduate Development (OSPGD), a mouthful to say, is staffed by eleven full-time professionals. That works out to a 210:1 student-to-advisor ratio, which is better than average compared to other schools featured in this guide. Noteworthy for a small liberal arts school, F&M employs expert advisors who specialize in health care professions and law school advising so that undergrads on those tracks can receive specialized guidance. In the 2018-19 academic year an impressive 2,540 (more than one per student) one-on-one advising sessions were conducted.

Students seeking a personal touch in advising will appreciate the OPSGD’s availability to meet one-on-one to discuss internship opportunities, professional pathways, or graduate school planning. A commendable 80 percent of the student body engages with the office each year. The sixth annual Job and Internship Fair, held in 2018, drew roughly eighty employers, and 106 employers recruited at some point on campus during the same year. The office puts on about 150 events each year with a total attendance of over 3,200. Other career-oriented offerings include Life After F&M, a handy feature that allows current Diplomats to view the types of jobs held by graduates of every major offered at the college. With each student’s Handshake account, they also can access a database of 800+ alumni and parent mentors more than happy to dispense career advice. With a high level of engagement and positive graduate outcomes, the OSPGD receives a positive rating from our staff.

Professional Outcomes

Shortly after graduation, 97 percent of 2018 F&M grads are either employed or continuing their educational journey. The most frequently pursued industries are education (20 percent), finance and insurance (16 percent), research and development (7 percent), public administration (7 percent), and social/community service (7 percent). Students find work at a cornucopia of interesting companies and organizations from HBO to the Selective Mutism Research Institute to Sotheby’s. Across all graduating years the companies with the greatest number of Diplomats on staff are Morgan Stanley, Deloitte, Vanguard, EY, Merrill Lynch, IBM, Wells Fargo, and Citi. Sixty-five percent of graduates stay in the Northeast, and 19 percent head down South. There are more alumni living in New York City than in Philadelphia. Salary data for alumni at age thirty-four reveals a median income of $58k, slightly higher than grads of more prestigious Pennsylvania-based liberal arts schools Swarthmore and Haverford.

F&M boasts excellent results for premed students. Over a three-year period, 89 percent of students with at least a 3.3 GPA and an MCAT score in the 67th percentile or better were accepted into medical school. That includes admissions into schools of medicine at Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, Penn, and Georgetown. Those seeking a legal education head to universities such as Villanova, Harvard, William & Mary, NYU, Yale, Tulane, and UC Berkeley. Of the 18 percent of graduates furthering their education, there is a genuine mix of prestigious and less prestigious graduate programs, but it is fair to say that excelling at F&M at least puts you in the running for a spot at a top graduate school.

Admission

Applications to F&M surged to record levels as 9,502 poured in for a place in the Class of 2023, and 30 percent were accepted. The implementation of a full-blown test-optional strategy could be behind the massive spike. In 2018, Franklin & Marshall admitted 35 percent of more than 6,500 applicants. The Class of 2022 possessed mid-50 percent standardized test scores of 1260-1440 on the SAT and 28 to 32 on the ACT. Those scores were almost identical to the profile of the average member of the graduating Class of 2018 that had a similar admit rate of 36 percent. In other words, not much has changed in recent years. F&M continues to place the highest value on rigor of coursework, GPA, class rank, and character/personal qualities. On that last factor, it particularly values athletic participation/leadership; an insanely high percentage of incoming students played a varsity sport in high school. Fifty-nine percent of freshmen in the 2018-19 academic year finished in the top 10 percent of their high school cohort; 84 percent were in the top 25 percent.

F&M faces stiff competition for students as it must compete with a high number of other excellent liberal arts schools in PA and the surrounding states. Its yield rate (the percentage of accepted students who enroll) is only 26 percent, which means the admissions staff is particularly interested in qualified applicants for whom F&M is a top choice. Thus, it is no surprise that the early decision acceptance rate is 58 percent, far more favorable than that of the regular round; 57 percent of the 2018-19 freshman cohort came through the ED round. Not a school with a formulaic admissions algorithm, F&M students do typically share two common traits—excellent high school grades and strong interest in attending the college.

Worth Your Money?

Attending Franklin & Marshall will cost you $73k per year unless you are among the 54 percent of undergraduates who demonstrate financial need, in which case you see 100 percent of your financial need met. The average grant is for almost $47,000. Merit-based aid is not offered. Overall, F&M does an admirable job of making the school affordable for those from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds. However, middle-to-upper income students who cannot comfortably afford F&M’s price and who fail to qualify for significant need-based aid should consider their desired path after college before committing. For everyone else, investing in an F&M degree is likely worth the money.