Santa Clara University acceptance rate and admissions profile

Santa Clara University is a private college in California that admits roughly 48% of applicants, which puts it in the selective range. A rate like this means it admits a minority of applicants; the bar is less about clearing a single cutoff and more about how your full profile compares to admitted students.

Use this page to see what Santa Clara University weighs, where it ranks among California schools, and how a profile like yours is likely to land. Admitted students post a 75th-percentile SAT around 1430, a useful checkpoint for where your scores sit, though it is a reference range and not a cutoff.

Santa Clara University signals that it values rigor of secondary school record, academic GPA, and application essay above the rest of the file. Solid grades in a challenging schedule do most of the work here, with the rest of the application providing context. These ratings come from Santa Clara University's reported Common Data Set, so the full chart below reflects what the school itself says it values, not a generic guess.

Among the 61 California schools we track, Santa Clara University ranks #19 most selective by acceptance rate. Schools like California Institute of Technology (3%) and Stanford University (4%) sit nearby, which makes California a useful frame for calibrating a balanced list.

If Santa Clara University is on your list, schools with a similar admit profile are worth a look: Austin College, Rollins College, and St. Olaf College. 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 and admitted test ranges reflect publicly reported data (U.S. Department of Education / NCES IPEDS / Common Data Sets). Estimates from CollegeCalcAI are a planning tool computed by a fixed, transparent model, not a guarantee of any admission decision.