Montana State University acceptance rate and your odds of getting in

With an acceptance rate near 82%, Montana State University is an accessible public university in Montana. Because it admits most qualified applicants, admission turns on the strength of your whole profile rather than any one number.

Use this page to see what Montana State University weighs, where it ranks among Montana schools, and how a profile like yours is likely to land. Admitted students post a 75th-percentile SAT around 1250, a useful checkpoint for where your scores sit, though it is a reference range and not a cutoff.

What are my chances at Montana State University with a 3.1 GPA and a 1180 SAT?

About 97% (Safety), by CollegeCalcAI's deterministic model, for an applicant with a 3.1 unweighted GPA and a 1180 SAT, the middle of Montana State University's admitted range, applying Regular Decision without a hook. A 3.4 GPA with a 1290 SAT comes out near 98%. 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/montana-state-university.

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

For the fall 2023 entering class, Montana State University received 21,975 applications and admitted 19,081, an acceptance rate of 86.8%. 3,634 enrolled. Only about 19% of admitted students enrolled, so the school admits several students for every seat it expects to fill, which is why its acceptance rate reads higher than its selectivity feels. Montana State University enrolls about 14,451 undergraduates in total, 47% of them women, with a student-to-faculty ratio of 18 to 1.

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

The middle 50% of admitted students at Montana State University scored between 1065 and 1285 on the SAT (average 1183). On the ACT the middle 50% runs from 21 to 27. A score above 1285 puts you in the top quarter of admits and turns the test into an asset; a score below 1065 puts you in the bottom quarter, where the rest of the application has to carry more weight. Montana State University 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, Montana State University leans most on rigor of secondary school record, academic GPA, and standardized test scores. Solid grades in a challenging schedule do most of the work here, with the rest of the application providing context. These ratings come from Montana State University's reported Common Data Set, so the full chart below reflects what the school itself says it values, not a generic guess.

Montana State University's published cost of attendance, before any aid, is roughly $25,905 per year. Tuition and fees are $8,460 for MT residents and $33,287 for out-of-state students, a $24,827 gap that makes residency the single biggest lever on cost. What families actually pay is different: the average net price after grants and scholarships is $22,499 a year, and it ranges from $17,797 for families earning under $30,000 to $25,905 for families earning over $110,000. 16% 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.

Ten years after enrolling, the median Montana State University student who received federal aid earns $53,263 a year, up from $44,757 at six years. 57% of first-time, full-time students graduate within six years, and 79% return for a second year. Among graduates who borrowed, median federal debt at graduation is $22,500; 31% 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 9 Montana schools we track, Montana State University ranks #7 most selective by acceptance rate. Schools like Providence University (MT) (65%) and Rocky Mountain College (70%) sit nearby, which makes Montana a useful frame for calibrating a balanced list. As a public university, residency matters: in-state applicants generally see meaningfully better odds than the headline rate suggests.

Build around Montana State University with peers at a comparable selectivity, such as Arkansas State University, Kansas State University, and Morgan State 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.