St Olaf College

Private · Selective · MN

Photo: Daniel Edwins (Webmoof) (CC BY-SA 2.5)

School data & stats

TypePrivate

LocationMN · Midwest

SettingRural

Undergrads3,093

Student:faculty11:1

Outcomes

4-yr grad rate77.4%

6-yr grad rate84%

Drop-out rate7.8%

Study abroad—

Cost

In-state tuition$60k

Out-of-state tuition$60k

Application fee—

Community

Racial diversity33.3%

Gender diversity58.4%

International10.5%

IdentityEvangelical Lutheran Church

Overview

St. Olaf College is a private liberal arts college on Manitou Heights, a hill overlooking Northfield, Minnesota, affiliated with the Lutheran church (ELCA) and rooted in Norwegian-American heritage. Northfield's old civic motto — “Cows, Colleges, and Contentment” — captures the town's character, and St. Olaf shares that classic college-town setting with neighboring Carleton College, giving Northfield an unusually dense concentration of liberal arts life for its size.

Academics

St. Olaf is nationally known for its music program, especially the St. Olaf Choir, and also carries real strength in mathematics and the sciences. Many first-years take the Great Conversation, an integrated two-year humanities sequence built around foundational texts, as an alternative path through general education requirements. The college has one of the highest study-abroad participation rates in the country, and a strong environmental studies presence is reinforced by STOGROW, the student-run organic garden that feeds into campus dining.

Campus & student life

The annual Christmas Festival is a major campus tradition drawing wide attention beyond the student body, and music ensembles more broadly are a significant part of student life even for non-majors. The good-natured Oles-Carls rivalry with Carleton runs through everything from athletics to campus folklore, and the fight song “Um Yah Yah” is a genuine piece of campus identity sung at games and events. The Northfield setting gives students access to a livelier college-town social and cultural scene than the college's size alone would suggest.

Getting in

Applicants with serious music backgrounds, including audition-based scholarship opportunities, form a notable share of the pool, though admission is holistic and not confined to musicians. Lutheran heritage and the language of vocation — finding one's calling, not just a career — are recurring, genuine themes in the college's self-presentation and show up in supplemental essays.

After graduation

Graduates go on strongly into music, science, and math-related graduate programs and careers, and the college's Piper Center for Vocation and Career leans explicitly into that vocational framing in its advising. The alumni network carries a distinct affinity around the choir and music program specifically, one that shows up at Christmas Festival reunions and touring choir stops nationally.

Worth knowing

The Christmas Festival and choir program are central to the school's identity nationally, and the high study-abroad rate means most students should expect to spend real time overseas as part of a typical St. Olaf experience. The Great Conversation program is worth knowing about for students who want (or want to avoid) a structured, text-based approach to general education.

stolaf.edu ↗

Admissions

Acceptance rate48.3%

Enrolled mid-50%SAT 1300–1470 · ACT 28–32

Test policyoptional

Rec letters1

Deadlines (2026–27 cycle)

Early actionNov 1

Early decisionNov 1

Regular decisionJan 15

Verified from the school’s admissions page ↗

Applying (2026-27 cycle)

Apply through Common App or Coalition (Scoir).

Early decision IIJan 15

Early Decision is a binding commitment, Early Action is non-binding and simply returns a decision sooner, and a second binding Early Decision II round shares the Regular Decision deadline.

Interviews: An admissions interview is optional and not required to apply.

Verified from the school’s admissions pages ↗