Amherst College acceptance rate and your odds of getting in

With an acceptance rate near 9%, Amherst College is a most selective private college in Massachusetts. Because it admits roughly one in ten applicants or fewer, admission turns on the strength of your whole profile rather than any one number.

Use this page to see what Amherst College weighs, where it ranks among Massachusetts schools, and how a profile like yours is likely to land. Admitted students post a 75th-percentile SAT around 1540, a useful checkpoint for where your scores sit, though it is a reference range and not a cutoff.

Amherst College application deadlines, 2026-27

What are my chances at Amherst College with a 3.9 GPA and a 1540 SAT?

About 17% (Reach), by CollegeCalcAI's deterministic model, for an applicant with a 3.9 unweighted GPA and a 1540 SAT, the middle of Amherst College's admitted range, applying Regular Decision without a hook. A 4.0 GPA with a 1580 SAT comes out near 19%. Courses, activities, essays and the application round move the number; the free calculator includes them.

Estimates, not guarantees. Get yours with your real courses and activities. Assistants and developers can fetch this table from the free API: /api/v1/colleges/amherst-college.

Source: Amherst College Common Data Set 2025-26. Every figure appears verbatim in the document. See how early rounds compare across colleges in the Early Decision rankings.

Here is how to get into Amherst College, built from what its admitted class actually looks like and what the school says it weighs.

For the fall 2023 entering class, Amherst College received 12,727 applications and admitted 1,250, an acceptance rate of 9.8%. 488 enrolled. Roughly 39% of admitted students enrolled, a typical yield for a school in this range. Amherst College enrolls about 1,911 undergraduates in total, 55% of them women, with a student-to-faculty ratio of 6 to 1.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, IPEDS 2023 admissions and enrollment.

Admitted students at Amherst College post SAT scores of 1490 to 1580 in the middle 50%, with an average of 1533. On the ACT the middle 50% runs from 33 to 35. A score above 1580 puts you in the top quarter of admits and turns the test into an asset; a score below 1490 puts you in the bottom quarter, where the rest of the application has to carry more weight. Amherst College is test-optional: scores are considered if you submit them but not required. Send a score at or above the middle of the admitted range; otherwise apply without one and let your transcript lead.

Source: College Scorecard (U.S. Department of Education), release 2026-06-10.

In its review, Amherst College leans most on rigor of secondary school record, academic GPA, and application essay. At this level of selectivity, the difference between admits is rarely the transcript alone; essays, recommendations, and a coherent story matter. These ratings come from Amherst College's reported Common Data Set, so the full chart below reflects what the school itself says it values, not a generic guess.

The full sticker price at Amherst College (tuition, fees, housing, food, books) is about $87,640 a year. Tuition and fees alone are $70,480. What families actually pay is different: the average net price after grants and scholarships is $23,367 a year, and it ranges from $1,086 for families earning under $30,000 to $47,521 for families earning over $110,000. 20% of undergraduates receive a federal Pell Grant.

Source: College Scorecard (U.S. Department of Education), release 2026-06-10. Net price is what students receiving aid paid after grants, by family income.

Median earnings for Amherst College students ten years after entry are $77,644 ($62,537 at the six-year mark). 94% of first-time, full-time students graduate within six years, and 97% return for a second year. Among graduates who borrowed, median federal debt at graduation is $13,740; 8% of undergraduates take federal loans.

Source: College Scorecard (U.S. Department of Education), release 2026-06-10. Earnings cover students who received federal aid.

Among the 36 Massachusetts schools we track, Amherst College ranks #5 most selective by acceptance rate. Schools like Harvard University (4%) and Northeastern University (5%) sit nearby, which makes Massachusetts a useful frame for calibrating a balanced list.

Build around Amherst College with peers at a comparable selectivity, such as Cornell University, New York University, and Northwestern University. Running the same profile against each one in the free calculator is the fastest way to see where you are a reach, a match, or a likely.

Acceptance rate, application counts, admitted test ranges, cost, and outcomes reflect publicly reported federal data (U.S. Department of Education: IPEDS 2023 and the College Scorecard) and each school's Common Data Set; figures are rounded and lag the current cycle by one to two years, so confirm deadlines and policies on the school's own site. The typical-admit GPA and SAT are CollegeCalcAI's modeled estimates. Estimates from CollegeCalcAI are a planning tool computed by a fixed, transparent model, not a guarantee of any admission decision.