Nebraska-Kearney acceptance rate and your odds of getting in

With an acceptance rate near 89%, Nebraska-Kearney is an accessible public university in Nebraska. 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 Nebraska-Kearney weighs, where it ranks among Nebraska schools, and how a profile like yours is likely to land. Admitted students post a 75th-percentile SAT around 1120, a useful checkpoint for where your scores sit, though it is a reference range and not a cutoff.

What are my chances at Nebraska-Kearney with a 3.1 GPA and a 1020 SAT?

About 98% (Safety), by CollegeCalcAI's deterministic model, for an applicant with a 3.1 unweighted GPA and a 1020 SAT, the middle of Nebraska-Kearney's admitted range, applying Regular Decision without a hook. A 3.4 GPA with a 1130 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/nebraska-kearney.

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

For the fall 2023 entering class, Nebraska-Kearney received 7,253 applications and admitted 6,222, an acceptance rate of 85.8%. 910 enrolled. Only about 15% 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. Nebraska-Kearney enrolls about 4,088 undergraduates in total, 62% of them women, with a student-to-faculty ratio of 14 to 1.

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

The middle 50% of admitted students at Nebraska-Kearney scored between 905 and 1125 on the SAT (average 1118). On the ACT the middle 50% runs from 19 to 26. A score above 1125 puts you in the top quarter of admits and turns the test into an asset; a score below 905 puts you in the bottom quarter, where the rest of the application has to carry more weight. Nebraska-Kearney 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, Nebraska-Kearney 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 Nebraska-Kearney's reported Common Data Set, so the full chart below reflects what the school itself says it values, not a generic guess.

Nebraska-Kearney's published cost of attendance, before any aid, is roughly $25,808 per year. Tuition and fees are $8,676 for NE residents and $15,284 for out-of-state students, a $6,608 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 $16,242 a year, and it ranges from $13,066 for families earning under $30,000 to $20,664 for families earning over $110,000. 37% 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 Nebraska-Kearney student who received federal aid earns $50,105 a year, up from $43,241 at six years. 58% of first-time, full-time students graduate within six years, and 80% return for a second year. Among graduates who borrowed, median federal debt at graduation is $19,500; 35% 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 14 Nebraska schools we track, Nebraska-Kearney ranks #13 most selective by acceptance rate. Schools like College of Saint Mary (NE) (45%) and York University (NE) (52%) sit nearby, which makes Nebraska 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 Nebraska-Kearney with peers at a comparable selectivity, such as Colorado State University, East Carolina University, and Iowa 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.