Bates College is a liberal arts college located in Lewiston, Maine and occupies a 133 acre main campus and further includes a 574 acre Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area, and the 80 acre Bates College Coastal Center fresh water habitat at Shortridge. Bates was the first co-educational institution in New England when it was founded in 1855.

Bates is recognized for its progressive tradition and inclusive social character, with student organizations open to all and no fraternities and sororities on campus. Central to Bates is the idea of teaching excellence.

With limited funding, Bates has struggled to enroll minority students, with only 27% of its total enrollment identifying as students of color.

Bates’ fundraising campaign initiated in 2017 has raised $336 million as of May 2022, with the bulk of the funds raised marked for $138 million to fund a permanent endowment fund, $131 million for needs based financial aid, and $75 million towards the evolution of science education at Bates. The success of this fundraising campaign will enable Bates to pursue diversity policies more effectively.

Distinguished alumni from Bates include Robert Kennedy - former US Senator and Attorney-General, Bryant Gumbel - sportscaster and journalist, George J Mitchell - former US Special Envoy for Middle East Peace, Edmund Muskie, former US Secretary of State, Minoru Yamasaki - Architect and designer of the original World Trade Center in New York, and many more.

Costs of attending Bates College 2022-2023

Tuition, room and board - $78,290

Health insurance - $2,326

Books and supplies - $900

Travel and personal expenses - $2,150 - $3,050

Total cost of attendance - $82,766 - $83,666

Access Bates’ Net Price Calculator

Bates College Statistics at a Glance

Data from Bates College website and Common Data Sets. When there was a conflict in data between the website and the Common Data Set, we used the data from the Common Data Sets.

Sports at Bates College

Bates College belongs in NCAA Division 3. Bates College plays a total of 29 NCAA sports, 14 of them for men and 15 for women. In the 2021/2022 season, Bates College had a total of 781 NCAA athletes comprising 43% of the total student body.

As a Division 3 college, Bates recruits athletes through the Early Decision or Regular Decision process where the head coach provides a strong letter of support confirming the athlete’s potential contributions and value to the sports team.

Learn more about:

What NCAA sports does Bates College play?

Bates College Athlete Recruitment Policy

What you can expect from Bates College

Bates College desires to cultivate leaders of the future who are sustained by a love of learning and are committed to responsible stewardship of the wider world. Bates wants to “educate the whole person through creative and rigorous scholarship in a collaborative residential community.”

Bates College has high ideals and wants to cultivate intellectual discovery and informed civic action through engagement with what they term “the transformative power of our differences.”

Bates prides itself for having “stood firmly for the ideals of academic rigor, intellectual curiosity, egalitarianism, social justice and freedom.”

Is it hard to get into Bates College?

After 2 years of decreases in the number of applications received, Bates College experienced a 13% increase in applications for the Class of 2026. The increased number of applications pushed its acceptance rate down to 13% for the class of 2026.

With an acceptance rate in the low teens, Bates is a moderately difficult college to get admitted to. While Bates College’s Common Data Set for 2021-2022 presents standardized test scores for middle 50% range that do not appear to be as challenging (SAT 1290-1440, ACT 30-34) as many of its highly selective peers, an aspiring applicant should take careful note of what Bates is looking for in its applicants.

Bates holds progressive values and stands by ideals that include egalitarianism, social justice and freedom. Bates College will find an applicant who shares these common values with it to be a much more appealing candidate than one who does not. Your activity track record and your essay will speak volumes to Bates on whether you share common values.

Where do Barnard College graduates work and what do they earn?

According to Bates College, 91% of its graduating class of 2021 were either employed (77%), or in graduate school (14%) 6 months after graduation.

The top industries that Bates graduates ended up working in include:

Highlights of employers who hired Bates graduates (and who recruited on-campus)

• Education (19%)

• Healthcare (15%)

• Finance/Banking (8%)

• Consulting (6%)

• Law (5%)

• Technology (5%)

• Non Profit (5%)

• Business Services (4%)

• Scientific R&D in Physical, Engineering and Life Sciences (3%)

• Arts/Design (3%)

• Real Estate (3%)

• Recreation/Parks/Sports (3%)

• Communications (2%)

• Energy/Utilities (2%)

• Environmental (2%)

• Abernathy MacGregor

• Accenture

• AlphaSights

• Applied Materials

• Barclays

• Boston Children’s Hospital

• Brigham and Women’s Hospital

• Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard + Brown Brothers Harriman

• Citi

• Cravath, Swaine & Moore

• Cushman & Wakefield

• Fidelity Investments

• Guidepoint

• HubSpot

• JP Morgan Chase

• Kieve Wavus Education

• MaineHealth

• Massachusetts General

• Memorial Sloan Kettering

• Merrill Lynch

• Morningstar, Inc

• National Renewable Energy Laboratory

• Noble and Greenough School

• Sanford Heisler Sharp LLP

• Success Academy Charter Schools + Sullivan & Cromwell LLP

• UBS

• Wellable

Earnings Data for Bates College Graduates

With the costs of attending college becoming prohibitively expensive, it is hard to treat the college experience as a strictly educational and developmental one. You have to think about your earnings potential as well. Unless you are very lucky, chances are that you will graduate with some student debt. Whether you can afford to pay it off in reasonable time, and not have this debt interfere with your ability to live your life without a overhanging debt burden depends on what you can earn when you graduate from college.

Knowing what you can earn with the the degree you earn and the college you earned it at is essential for planning your life. The data we provide here is meant as a guideline only as there will be variance between individuals based on many factors including the types of jobs and employers they pursue.

Data from Payscale based on 229 responses

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