Harvey Mudd Acceptance Rate: 18%

Shortcuts to sections offered for Harvey Mudd prospective students:

Successful Applicant Profile

• Demographics
• Majors
• SAT/ACT Scores

Entry Requirements

• Tuition
• Scholarships
• Checklist of Application Requirements
• Application Deadlines

What Should You Expect?

• Student life
• Academics offered
• Athletics offered
• Notable alumni

Located in beautiful Claremont, California, Harvey Mudd College is a residential undergraduate science and engineering college and is contiguous with the contiguous Claremont Colleges, which all share adjoining campus grounds.

Harvey Mudd is lesser known than some of the most prestigious and competitive undergraduate schools in the country, but it is no less impressive to get into and attend. At current, the Harvey Mudd acceptance rate is just 18%, which puts it on par with many schools that are considered just as prestigious as the school in the Ivy League.

If you are a high school student that is interested in applying to Harvey Mudd College, it is highly important that you know what the Harvey Mudd acceptance rate is so that you can correctly prepare for the hard road ahead.

One thing that should absolutely give you confidence is the fact that the Harvey Mudd acceptance rate is above double digits. After all, the most competitive schools are well below, with some schools having acceptance rates just above 5%!

Still, 18% is no laughing matter and you will want to make sure that everything from your grades, to your test scores, to your letters of recommendation and personal essays are as good as they can be so that you can ensure that you get into any school that is amongst your top choices.

Here at AdmissionSight, we believe that it is our job to help every high school student that we work with getting into the schools of their dreams.

Whether that means getting into an Ivy League school such as Princeton or Columbia, or a major public university such as UCLA or Michigan. We make it our job to help your job of getting into college as easy and stress-free as possible!

When it comes to getting into any school, there is a lot of great information that students should keep in mind in order to be best prepared for the entire application process from start to finish.

While this is not the only thing that is crucially important, one thing that students absolutely want to familiarize themselves with is the grades and standardized test scores that are typically needed in order to gain acceptance to a specific school.

It is also worth it to try to find out what emphasis a school’s admissions counselors tend to put on such things.

When it comes to the GPA that students want to aim for in order to get into Harvey Mudd, the average GPA of students who do get in is a weighted 4.15.

That is incredibly high and is a sign that they want to see that any students that apply excelled throughout their four years of high school. That includes excelling in weighted courses such as Honors and AP courses.

The average SAT score is no less restrictive. In fact, the average grade of students who get into Harvey Mudd is an incredibly 1530 out of the perfect 1600.

Finally, the average score ACT of students who get into Harvey Mudd is 35 out of 36. From these numbers alone, it is abundantly clear just how choosy this school is when it comes to accepting student applications and granting admissions to a few lucky high schoolers.

With those numbers out of the way (for now, we’ll dive deeper into what they mean in a little bit), let’s break down everything that you will want to know about applying to and getting into Harvey Mudd!

Let’s get started.

Successful Applicant Profile

Every year, approximately 4,000 students tend to apply to Harvey Mudd. Of that group, just over 600 will usually get in, with approximately 200 to 250 students ending up making the decision to actually attend Harvey Mudd.

As you can likely tell from those graduating class sizes, the courses that you will be in quite small classes where you get to engage with the professors and fellow students freely. Harvey Mudd is not the school where you will be surprised to find that half of your courses take place in auditoriums that can seat 500 students or more!

For that reason, students who decide to attend this fantastic school will likely know – or at least be familiar with – the people that they graduate with after four years at the school.

That’s why it’s so important to make sure that you will feel comfortable learning alongside your fellow students. A big part of feeling comfortable is being part of a diverse student body that is represented well by all kinds of people.

Luckily, Harvey Mudd excels when it comes to diversity within the student body.

Diversity: Who Attends Harvey Mudd?

Harvey Mudd is incredibly diverse when it comes to ethnic, gender, international, and overall diversity. In fact, it scored a 94 out of 100 on CollegeFactual’s rating system in regard to university and college diversity. It was ranked as the 25th most diverse school out of the total 2,475 that were looked at.

Many incoming college students value the opportunity to meet and learn from people who are from different backgrounds. At Harvey Mudd, here is a breakdown of the different groups that are represented.

• 33.2% of the students at Harvey Mudd college are white
• 17.4% of the students at Harvey Mudd college are Asian
• 17.4% of the students at Harvey Mudd College are Hispanic/Latino
• 10.0% of the students at Harvey Mudd college are Non-Resident Alien
• 3.7% of the students at Harvey Mudd college are African American

As you can see, the student body is wonderfully diverse and it is part of what makes the school so desirable in the first place!

From a gender standpoint, 54.3% of the students at Harvey Mudd are men, meaning they make up a small majority. Still, the classes are typically very well balance between young men and young women.

Finally, when it comes to international students, Harvey Mudd ranked as the 144th most popular school for international students out of 1,240 total schools evaluated. That ranking is quite impressive considering how small Harvey Mudd is!

Some of the countries that the students who end up attending Harvey Mudd come from include:

• China
• India
• South Korea
• Singapore

Overall, a whopping 10% of the total students at Harvey Mudd are international students.

What are the most popular programs at Harvey Mudd?

One thing that is very important when it comes to choosing the right school for you is to make sure that you end up going to a school that offers great programs and majors that you are interested in pursuing.

After all, it doesn’t help much if you go to a great school that is known for its English program, but you are interested in majoring in economics.

When it comes to Harvey Mudd, some of the most popular majors include Engineering; Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services; Physical Sciences; Multi/Interdisciplinary Studies; and Biological and Biomedical Sciences.

SAT, ACT, and GPA

As you already knew, the standardized test scores and GPAs of students who get into Harvey Mudd are incredibly high, but what does that really mean?

Essentially, what it means is that the school puts extra emphasis on these raw numbers, compared to many other schools that will also highly consider important factors such as extracurriculars, personal essays, letters of recommendation, and more.

That is not to say that Harvey Mudd does not also consider these factors, but it does mean that if you are not a great test-taker, struggled through some of your courses in high school, or do not have the very top grades and scores for some other reason, then you may end up having a fairly hard time getting into Harvey Mudd.

The major reason why Harvey Mudd is so restrictive when it comes to these raw numbers is that – as you can see by their most popular majors – the school is primarily focused on STEM programs. These programs tend to produce students who excel on standardized tests and get fantastic grades throughout high school.

Entry Requirements

No matter what schools you are thinking about applying to, the question of whether or not you can get in is not the only thing that you need to concern yourself with. One other thing that you will want to keep in mind is how much the school costs, how much financial aid might be available to you, and what you need to send in by when.

Here is a breakdown of all that information when it comes to Harvey Mudd.

How much does it cost?

As you likely already know, the vast majority of top universities in the United States cost tens of thousands of dollars to apply. Even top public schools that offer in-state tuition cost tons of money. Before applying to schools, it is important that you learn about the costs and try to find out about any financial aid options that might be available to you.

When it comes to Harvey Mudd, here is the cost of an average year of attending that you can expect.

What is the average amount of financial aid?

The price of Harvey Mudd is undeniably steep. Still, that does not mean that you need to cross the school off of your list of dream schools if money is a concern.

The reason why is as follows. Approximately 70 percent of students receive some form of financial aid to attend Harvey Mudd. About 48 percent of students received need-based aid while 23 percent of incoming first-year students will receive merit-based awards.

The average financial aid award is about $43,064 (a combination of grants, scholarships, loans, and work-study), of which about $33,418 (includes need-based and merit-based awards) comes in grants and scholarships aid from Harvey Mudd College (not from government sources)

Application requirements

Now with the money out of the way, let’s break down what Harvey Mudd expects every applicant to send in in order to be considered for admissions. The requirements which can be found on the school’s official site are as follows:

One thing that students should keep in mind for the 2021 and 2022 years is that, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Harvey Mudd has made all standardized tests optional.

That means that you do not have to send in any SAT or ACT scores in order to be considered. While that may seem like a major blessing, it can also be something of a hindrance if you were hoping that strong standardized testing scores would help fill any gaps that may exist in your GPA. Either way, it will still be heavily difficult to gain admissions to Harvey Mudd.

Application deadline

Finally, Harvey Mudd has three different application deadlines depending on how you are applying.

If you are an Early Decision I student, your application is due on Nov. 15 and your decision will be mailed to you by Dec. 15.

If you are an Early Decision II student, your application will be due Jan. 5 and your decision will be mailed to you by Feb. 15.

If you are a Regular Decision student, your application will be due on Jan. 5 and your decision will be mailed back to you by April 1.

What to Expect

One of the very best ways to get an idea about what you can expect from attending a specific school is to see what current students have to stay about it. Thanks to Niche, students at Harvey Mudd are able to write reviews about their experiences at the school. Here are some of the best reviews that we at AdmissionSight were able to find.

“HMC is a great place!” one student wrote. “The 5C Make it even better! You can find almost everything you want at HMC. If not, then it definitely can be found at the other 5C. That is true for classes, majors, clubs, parties. The professors are very understanding.

There is a nice town a mile away, a walk with friends is a good way to take off attention from the workload. Parties are held only during breaks, Friday or Saturday nights with a set time limit from 9 pm to 1 am. On other nights the quiet hours start at 11 pm accomodating students’ schedules.

The dining hall has a great variety. If you get bored with it, you can go to another dining hall. You can check their menus on a website.”

“Social life is pretty lit,” another wrote. “Met some really great lads here. Profs are the most awesome people ever; genuinely cool people who care a ton. Workload is rough tbh but if you’re motivated, it’s manageable. Forget about non-STEM extracurriculars, unless you’re ready to absolutely murder your GPA.

People don’t talk about world issues as much as I’d like, but I’m a political science/philosophy nerd so take that with a grain of salt. Overall pretty great, though it’s not for everyone.”

Top Academics

When it comes to the academics at Harvey Mudd, some are ranked rather highly nationally. It is ranked #5 when it comes to Civil Engineer, #3 in Computer Engineering. #2 in Mechanical Engineering and #4 in Electrical Engineering. It is also ranked as the #6 most innovative school in the United States and the #18 best school in undergraduate research and creative projects.

Athletics offered

Harvey Mudd competes in the NCAA Division III in the Southern Californian Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. It offers a number of different sports, 21 in total! They include men’s and women’s baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, soccer, swimming and diving, tennis, track and field, and water polo.

Famous alumni

As is the case with many of the top schools in the country, it is no surprise that some highly influential individuals ended up going to Harvey Mudd. Here are some of the most famous alumni:

• Stanley G. Love, astronaut
• Eric B. Kim, businessman
• Jonathan Gay, businessman
• Michael G. Wilson, producer and writer
• Richard Jones, diplomat

If you hope to one day see your name on that list, the first step is getting into Harvey Mudd. While you may be intimidated by Harvey Mudd acceptance rate, you should feel confident knowing that AdmissionSight can help you increase your chances of acceptance. Here, we know how to help students maximize their strengths in order to help them get into the school of their dreams.