St Olaf College Overview

Located in Northfield, Minnesota, St Olaf College is a private not-for-profit institution. The surrounding location of Northfield is ideal for students who enjoy the charms of a college town.

What Is St Olaf College Known For?

• Students at St. Olaf have an easier time paying back their loans. The school's student loan default rate is only 0%, compared to the national rate of 10.1%.
• The bachelor's degree is the highest award offered at St. Olaf.
• For the 2017-2018 academic year, 71% of the faculty were full-time.
• Students who graduate from St. Olaf with a bachelor's degree make about $50,400 a year. That's 24% more than those who graduate from other schools.
• The average St. Olaf student graduates in 4.0 years. That's better than the national average of 4.4 years.

St Olaf College Rankings

We have ranked St. Olaf as #284 out of 2,320 colleges and universities in the country in our 2021 Best Colleges list. This puts it in the top 15% of all schools in the nation.

These rankings may look different from those published by other outlets, because we use an outcomes-based approach rather than a subjective one. We get our data from a number of places, including the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and the College Scorecard. For more information, check out our rankings and methodology page.

Program Level Awards

These are highlights of some of the most noteworthy awards granted to specific programs at St. Olaf.

Rank	Ranking Name	Share
#8	Best Physics Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#9	Best Chemistry Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#39	Best Teacher Education Subject Specific Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#44	Best General Psychology Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#57	Best Psychology Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#59	Best Music Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#59	Most Popular Philosophy & Religious Studies Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#67	Best Economics Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#85	Best General Biology Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#98	Most Popular Mathematics & Statistics Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It

Awards From Around the Web

The following table lists some notable awards St. Olaf has earned from around the web.

Rank	Ranking Name	Source
#16	Best Value Colleges for Economics	College Factual
#20	Best Value Colleges for Mathematics & Statistics	College Factual
#30	Best Colleges for Teacher Education Subject Specific	College Factual
#66	Best Value Colleges for Psychology	College Factual
#77	Best Colleges for General Psychology	College Factual
#95	Best Colleges for Psychology	College Factual

Where Is St Olaf College?

Contact details for St. Olaf are given below.

	Contact Details
Address:	1520 St Olaf Ave, Northfield, MN 55057-1098
Phone:	507-786-2222
Website:	wp.stolaf.edu
Facebook:	https://www.facebook.com/stolafcollege?sk=wall
Twitter:	https://twitter.com/StOlaf

How Do I Get Into St. Olaf?

You can apply to St. Olaf online at: wp.stolaf.edu/admissions/apply/

Admission Requirements for St. Olaf

Submission	Required?
High School GPA	required
High School Rank	recommended
High School Transcript	required
College Prep Program	required
Recommendations	required
SAT or ACT Scores	required
TOEFL	required

How Hard Is It To Get Into St. Olaf?

You'll need to do what you can to make your application stand out if you plan to apply to St. Olaf. The school screens its applicants carefully and has a fairly low acceptance rate of 43%. So, don't just throw your admission packet together at the last minute!

Approximately 40% of accepted students are men and 60% are women. The acceptance rate for men is 32%, and the acceptance rate for women is 56%.

Average Test Scores

About 27% of students accepted to St. Olaf submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 580 and 690. Math scores were between 570 and 710.

St. Olaf received ACT scores from 80% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT English scores ranged between 25 and 34. Math scores were between 25 and 30. Composite scores were between 25 and 31.

Can I Afford St Olaf College?

The overall average net price of St. Olaf is $34,719. The affordability of the school largely depends on your financial need since net price varies by income group.

The net price is calculated by adding tuition, room, board and other costs and subtracting financial aid.

Student Loan Debt

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 St. Olaf, approximately 58% of students took out student loans averaging $6,488 a year. That adds up to $25,952 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at St. Olaf is 0.5%. This is significantly lower than the national default rate of 10.1%, which is a good sign that you'll be able to pay back your student loans.

St Olaf College Undergraduate Student Diversity

There are 3,072 undergraduate students at St. Olaf, with 3,050 being full-time and 22 being part-time.

Gender Diversity

Of the 3,050 full-time undergraduates at St. Olaf, 42% are male and 58% are female.

Racial-Ethnic Diversity

The racial-ethnic breakdown of St Olaf College students is as follows.

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Grads
Asian	202
Black or African American	83
Hispanic or Latino	214
White	2,081
International Students	330
Other Races/Ethnicities	140

Geographic Diversity

Minnesota students aren't the only ones who study at St Olaf College. At this time, 42 states are represented by the student population at the school.

Over 94 countries are represented at St. Olaf. The most popular countries sending students to the school are China, Vietnam, and India.

St Olaf College Undergraduate Concentrations

The table below shows the number of awards for each concentration.

Major	Bachelor’s	TOTAL
Economics	92	92
General Biology	90	90
Mathematics	73	73
General Psychology	63	63
Political Science & Government	56	56
Chemistry	49	49
Music	46	46
General English Literature	43	43
Romance Languages	35	35
Natural Resources Conservation	31	31
Area Studies	30	30
Sociology & Anthropology	29	29
Fine & Studio Arts	28	28
Health & Physical Education	26	26
Computer Science	23	23
Religious Studies	20	20
Drama & Theater Arts	20	20
Nursing	18	18
Philosophy	18	18
History	17	17
Teacher Education Subject Specific	15	15
East Asian Languages	14	14
Physics	14	14
Social Work	14	14
Ethnic Studies	13	13
Liberal Arts General Studies	13	13
Germanic Languages	10	10
Classical Languages & Literature	9	9
Sacred Music	5	5
Dance	5	5
Slavic, Baltic & Albanian Languages	1	1
Classical & Ancient Studies	0	0
Medieval Studies	0	0
TOTAL	920	920

References

*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.

• College Factual
• National Center for Education Statistics
• Image Credit: By Daniel Edwins a.k.a. Webmoof of English Wikipedia under License

More about our data sources and methodologies.