Total NCAA Athletes at the Top Colleges

The 61 highly selective colleges had almost 38,000 NCAA and varsity athletes in the 2021/2022 season. While about 20,600 of them or 54% of these athletes were men playing 25 sports, 17,500 or 46% of them were women playing 28 sports. The differential of almost 3,000 athletes between men and women is largely explained by two popular sports with very large teams played by men but not women, football and baseball.

On average, athletes represented 8% of the undergraduate student population at the 61 highly selective colleges.

The total number of athletes at each of these colleges vary depending on the aggregate number of sports each of them plays. CalTech, Tulane and Wellesley had fewer than 300 NCAA and varsity athletes playing 17 or fewer sports each while Harvard and Cornell had more than a thousand athletes each with Harvard playing 40 sports and Cornell playing 31 sports.

The top colleges that play more sports, especially in Division 1, offer somewhat more opportunities at athlete recruitment than those that play fewer sports. While many of the top colleges in Division 3 have a large pool of athletes, it is likely that a smaller percentage of their athletes are recruited athletes compared to the top colleges in Division 1.

For the large highly selective colleges with undergraduate enrollments exceeding 15,000 students, NCAA athletes generally represent less than 5% of the total undergraduate student body. At mid-sized colleges, NCAA athletes represent somewhere between 7% and 20% of the total undergraduate enrollment. It is only at many of the small, mostly liberal arts colleges that NCAA and varsity athletes represent a substantial percentage exceeding 25% of the undergraduate student body.

At Williams College, for example, 42% of the total enrollment of 2,000 students are NCAA athletes. This unusually high percentage of NCAA athletes is due to Williams playing a total of 32 NCAA sports, a number that puts it at the higher end of the range in sports amongst the highly selective colleges. Since sports teams must be of a fixed size plus have substitutes for the team to effectively compete in a sport, a greater percentage of the general student body will be involved in NCAA sports to fill up these teams.

These high percentages of athletes within the student body at many of the small liberal arts colleges does not mean that these athletes were all recruited. Since nearly all liberal arts colleges belong in Division 3, where resources and funding for sports teams are limited relative to the Division 1 teams, it is very likely that a large number of athletes on these teams are “walk on” athletes.

While we have emphasized that playing an NCAA sport can give an applicant a significant advantage in the admissions process, it is important to remember that these sports teams are never made up entirely of athlete recruits or applicants who received priority in admissions because of their sporting activities.

Most of the time, between 20% and 50% or more of the athletes on NCAA teams are made up of “walk on” athletes, these are students who most likely played the sport in high school, but they gained admission without any type of sport related priority. But once these “walk on” athletes are on a team, they too are considered NCAA or varsity athletes.

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Table of Total NCAA Athletes and Percent Composition at Highly Selective Colleges

The table below breaks down the number of NCAA athletes at each of the highly selective colleges by gender, and also calculates the percentage of athletes in the undergraduate student body.

Note: All data is compiled from current NCAA rosters published publicly on a college's athletic website and from an individual colleges main website.

Total NCAA Athletes at Highly Selective Colleges
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		Undergrad			Total	Athletes as
	Division	Enrollment	Men	Women	Total Athletes	% of Enrollment
Amherst College	III	1,970	369	272	641	33%
Babson College	III	2,350	269	182	451	19%
Barnard College	I	3,008	-	-	-	-
Bates College	III	2,000	402	368	770	39%
Boston College	I	15,409	317	387	704	5%
Boston University	I	18,229	282	292	574	3%
Bowdoin College	III	1,951	416	362	778	40%
Brown University	I	6,792	476	484	960	14%
California Institute of Technology	III	987	163	126	289	29%
Carleton College	III	2,046	259	180	439	21%
Carnegie Mellon University	III	7,365	301	238	539	7%
Claremont McKenna College (incl Harvey Mudd)	III	2,316	351	274	625	27%
Colby College	III	2,200	433	365	798	36%
Colgate University	I	3,228	278	261	539	17%
Colorado College	III	2,241	218	171	389	17%
Columbia University (incl Barnard College)	I	11,850	396	413	809	7%
Cornell University	I	15,503	527	495	1022	7%
Dartmouth College	I	4,556	491	405	896	20%
Davidson College	I	1,973	303	229	532	27%
Duke University	I	6,789	404	312	716	11%
Emory University	III	7,130	240	209	449	6%
Georgetown University	I	7,598	360	351	711	9%
Georgia Institute of Technology	I	17,447	270	160	430	2%
Grinnell College	III	1,493	257	199	456	31%
Hamilton College	III	2,055	406	318	724	35%
Harvard University	I	7,095	634	505	1139	16%
Harvey Mudd College	III	905	-	-	-	-
Haverford College	III	1,420	295	242	537	38%
John Hopkins University	III	5,358	419	310	729	14%
Massachusetts Institute of Technology	III	4,638	478	353	831	18%
Middleburry College	III	2,637	424	375	799	30%
Northeastern University	I	20,337	213	239	452	2%
Northwestern University	I	8,494	225	244	469	6%
New York University	III	29,700	270	217	487	2%
Pitzer College	III	1,185	-	-	-	-
Pomona College (incl Pitzer College)	III	2,949	342	250	592	20%
Princeton University	I	5,321	600	377	977	18%
Rice University	I	4,247	216	150	366	9%
Stanford University	I	7,645	426	384	810	11%
Swarthmore College	III	1,651	250	222	472	29%
Tufts University	III	6,676	526	388	914	14%
Tulane University	I	7,780	163	132	295	4%
University of California Berkeley	I	32,143	468	401	869	3%
University of California Los Angeles	I	32,119	355	347	702	2%
University of Michigan	I	32,282	468	341	809	3%
University of Chicago	III	7,559	362	253	615	8%
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill	I	19,897	408	354	762	4%
University of Notre Dame	I	8,973	444	360	804	9%
University of Pennsylvania	I	9,962	476	387	863	9%
University of Southern California	I	20,790	295	286	581	3%
University of Virginia	I	17,299	475	364	839	5%
Vanderbilt University	I	7,111	157	183	340	5%
Vassar College	III	2,516	303	268	571	23%
Villanova University	I	7,032	309	307	616	9%
Wake Forest University	I	5,472	269	154	423	8%
Washington and Lee University	III	1,857	376	264	640	34%
Washington University in St. Louis	III	7,426	357	246	603	8%
Wellesley College	III	2,461	0	266	266	11%
Wesleyan University	III	3,385	464	337	801	24%
Williams College	III	2,166	458	378	836	39%
Yale University	I	6,536	496	408	904	14%
Total		493,510	20,609	17,345	37,954
Averages			343	289	633	8%

Read about:

NCAA Sports Played at the Top Colleges

Athlete Recruitment Opportunities for Varsity Sports at Top Colleges

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