Sam Houston State University acceptance rate and your odds of getting in

Sam Houston State University, a public university in Texas, reports a 90% acceptance rate and sits in the accessible band. In practice that means it admits most qualified applicants, so a strong application is judged against an applicant pool that is already self-selected.

Use this page to see what Sam Houston State University weighs, where it ranks among Texas schools, and how a profile like yours is likely to land. Admitted students post a 75th-percentile SAT around 1160, a useful checkpoint for where your scores sit, though it is a reference range and not a cutoff.

What are my chances at Sam Houston State University with a 3.1 GPA and a 1030 SAT?

About 98% (Safety), by CollegeCalcAI's deterministic model, for an applicant with a 3.1 unweighted GPA and a 1030 SAT, the middle of Sam Houston State University's admitted range, applying Regular Decision without a hook. A 3.4 GPA with a 1120 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/sam-houston-state-university.

There is no formula that guarantees a spot at Sam Houston State University, but the applicants who get in tend to do the same four things. Here is what the numbers say each one looks like.

Sam Houston State University admitted 15,014 of the 17,582 students who applied for fall 2023, which works out to 85.4%. 3,601 enrolled. Only about 24% 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. Sam Houston State University enrolls about 17,743 undergraduates in total, 63% of them women, with a student-to-faculty ratio of 19 to 1.

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

The middle 50% of admitted students at Sam Houston State University scored between 930 and 1120 on the SAT (average 1041). On the ACT the middle 50% runs from 17 to 24. A score above 1120 puts you in the top quarter of admits and turns the test into an asset; a score below 930 puts you in the bottom quarter, where the rest of the application has to carry more weight. Sam Houston 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.

The factors that carry the most weight at Sam Houston State University are rigor of secondary school record and academic GPA. Solid grades in a challenging schedule do most of the work here, with the rest of the application providing context. These ratings come from Sam Houston State University's reported Common Data Set, so the full chart below reflects what the school itself says it values, not a generic guess.

Sam Houston State University's published cost of attendance, before any aid, is roughly $25,505 per year. Tuition and fees are $9,228 for TX residents and $19,068 for out-of-state students, a $9,840 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 $16,404 a year, and it ranges from $12,474 for families earning under $30,000 to $24,101 for families earning over $110,000. 41% 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 Sam Houston State University student who received federal aid earns $54,211 a year, up from $45,337 at six years. 55% of first-time, full-time students graduate within six years, and 73% return for a second year. Among graduates who borrowed, median federal debt at graduation is $21,983; 46% 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 53 Texas schools we track, Sam Houston State University ranks #37 most selective by acceptance rate. Schools like Rice University (8%) and Trinity University (TX) (26%) sit nearby, which makes Texas 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.

Applicants targeting Sam Houston State University often weigh Appalachian State University, Arizona State University, and Central Michigan University, which sit at a similar level. 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.