Cornell College

Private · Moderately Selective · IA

School data & stats

TypePrivate

LocationIA · Midwest

SettingRural

Undergrads1,086

Student:faculty14:1

Outcomes

4-yr grad rate58.5%

6-yr grad rate61.8%

Drop-out rate20.5%

Study abroad—

Cost

In-state tuition$53k

Out-of-state tuition$53k

Application fee—

Community

Racial diversity31.4%

Gender diversity46.3%

International3.2%

IdentityUnited Methodist

Overview

Cornell College, in Mount Vernon, Iowa, is a private liberal arts college built around one of the most distinctive academic calendars in American higher education: the One Course At A Time block plan, in which students take a single course intensively for roughly eighteen days before moving to the next. The entire hilltop campus is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, giving it a unified, historic architectural character rare among small colleges.

Academics

The block plan reshapes how every subject is taught: courses meet for extended daily sessions rather than short recurring periods, which suits immersive fieldwork, lab-intensive science, and off-campus study particularly well. Faculty design courses that take advantage of total student focus on one subject at a time, including block-long travel courses that would be difficult to fit into a conventional semester schedule.

Getting in

Applicants should understand the block plan is not a minor scheduling quirk but the organizing principle of a Cornell education, and admissions officers look for students who want that intensity rather than the breadth of a traditional multiple-classes-at-once semester.

Worth knowing

Cornell College is one of only two undergraduate institutions in the country on the true one-course-at-a-time block calendar, Colorado College being the other well-known example, making it a genuinely distinct option for students who thrive with single-subject immersion rather than juggling a full course load simultaneously.

cornellcollege.edu ↗

Admissions

Acceptance rate79.9%

Enrolled mid-50%SAT 1120–1285 · ACT 23–30

Test policyoptional

Rec letters—

Deadlines (2026–27 cycle)

Applying