Kalamazoo College Admission
Kalamazoo College Undergraduate Program
Kalamazoo College Application

The Facts

Kalamazoo College is a rather small liberal arts college located in the town of Kalamazoo, Michigan, and is home to over 1,280 undergraduate students. The school focuses on combining a solid education in the liberal arts with a significant amount of real-world experience that includes comprehensive study abroad and internship programs. The school also has a terrific Career Development office that works with students to find advantageous internships that suit their future career. Additionally, all students must complete a Senior Individualized Project that requires them to work independently to create a distinctive piece of work that focuses on their area of interest. The most popular majors at Kalamazoo include psychology, economics, business, biology, English, and chemistry.

Admission to Kalamazoo College is not terrifically competitive numerically; however, the applicant pool has been steadily increasing, and the applicants are usually drawn to the innovative curriculum style of the school. Last year, over 1,600 students applied for admission to the school, and approximately 1,125 of those students were accepted; of those, about 380 matriculated. The admitted students had an average combined SAT score ranging from 1230 to an impressive 1420, and an average comprehensive ACT score ranging from 26 to 30. Additionally, over 80% of those admitted were ranked in the top 25% of their high school graduating class with an average high school GPA of about 3.65.

Kalamazoo College has a very manageable student to faculty ratio of 12:1, and it is rare to find a class with more than 18 students. In general, teachers get high marks from their students for accessibility and willingness to help, and students comment that they receive a lot of individualized attention from their professors for their entire stay at the college. The school runs on a rather grueling quarter system, and students are forced to cram an entire semester into just ten weeks, which makes the academic scene fairly intense. Most students spend the majority of their time in the library or in their rooms studying and working on the many papers students are required to write in each class.

The Social Scene

The town of Kalamazoo is fairly small, and doesn’t really offer students much in the way of entertainment; however, there are several bars and clubs that we hear are pretty lax when it comes to carding. There are no fraternities or sororities at the school, which makes the on-campus party scene pretty lackluster; however, the school does have over 50 student-run clubs and organizations; everything from a dance company to a model U.N. The student body itself is pretty homogenous, although there are many clubs at the school that work hard to promote diversity.

The dating scene is what you make of it; chances are, you’ll have to actively search to find that special someone, or have some darn good bait.

What’s Good

“There is a nice sense of community here, and people tend to be really friendly.”

“The administration is pretty open when it comes to listening to suggestions. It’s nice to not have a ton of red tape.”

“The dorms are nice, and there are a lot of really cool special interest living options like an Art House.”

What’s Bad

“Everyone is exactly the same here; they all wear the same clothes, have the same hair, and talk the same.”

“The social scene is totally nonexistent here. You have to do the study abroad program if you want to have any amount of fun.”

“The atmosphere can get a bit too competitive and intense here. Because there is nothing fun to do, everyone is hyper-focused on their studies.”

Let the Penn Group help you apply to college.

• View our services
• Send a request now
• Read articles about applying to college