Marymount Manhattan College

Private · Moderately Selective · NY

Photo: Wasted Time R (CC BY-SA 3.0)

School data & stats

TypePrivate

LocationNY · Northeast

SettingUrban

Undergrads1,577

Student:faculty7:1

Outcomes

4-yr grad rate39.7%

6-yr grad rate49%

Drop-out rate29.8%

Study abroad—

Cost

In-state tuition$42k

Out-of-state tuition$42k

Application fee—

Community

Racial diversity57.6%

Gender diversity82.6%

International2.9%

Identity—

Overview

Marymount Manhattan College occupies a vertical campus on Manhattan's Upper East Side, where the surrounding city functions as much of the campus infrastructure a suburban college would otherwise need to build itself. It is best known nationally for dance and theatre programs that are genuinely among the most competitive of any liberal arts college.

Academics

Dance and theatre admission and continuation typically involve audition and ongoing performance evaluation rather than standard coursework alone, reflecting the conservatory-level seriousness of those programs despite the college's liberal-arts framing. Communication and other pre-professional tracks lean directly on New York City's media and arts industries for internships that would be far harder to access from a campus elsewhere.

Campus & student life

With no traditional quad or large residential campus, student life is genuinely woven into the city itself — the Upper East Side location and modest enrollment mean students rely on New York's resources rather than campus-built ones for much of daily life outside class.

Getting in

Dance and theatre applicants go through a formal audition process alongside standard academic review, and that audition can matter as much as grades for admission into those specific programs; other majors follow a more conventional holistic review.

After graduation

Dance and theatre graduates enter New York's performing-arts industry directly, aided by the college's location and its faculty's working connections in the field, giving Marymount Manhattan a genuine pipeline advantage in those fields that most college dance and theatre programs elsewhere cannot match.

mmm.edu ↗

Admissions

Acceptance rate82.6%

Enrolled mid-50%SAT 1105–1323 · ACT 24–27

Test policyoptional

Rec letters—

Deadlines (2026–27 cycle)

Applying