Bowdoin College is a liberal arts college that sits on a 215 acre campus located in the small coastal town of Brunswick in Maine, just 25 minutes north of the city of Portland.

Bowdoin College was founded in 1794 in Maine, which at the time was still a part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The college was endowed by the Bowdoins, a family of wealthy French Hugeunot merchants with interests in banking, shipping and real estate and named after Governor James Bowdoin II, a revolutionary hero. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts supported the establishment of the college with money and a series of land grants. The college opened its doors to students in September 1802.

35% of Bowdoin’s enrollment of 1,948 full time students identify as students of color, and 7.1% of them are international students. Bowdoin’s students come 49 states, 2 US territories and 54 foreign countries. Improving diversity metrics are reflected in the freshman class of 2025 which had 40% identify as students of color.

The market value of Bowdoin’s endowment stood at about $2.7 billion in mid-2021 including gifts of more than $38 million received that year.

Bowdoin College has a long history of distinguished alumni going all the way back to 1824 when Franklin Pierce, the 14th President of the United States graduated from Bowdoin. Since then, Bowdoin’s list of distinguished alumni has grown quite long representing leaders from many areas including writing and publishing, journalism, politics and government, military, business, inventors, explorers, judiciary, media and entertainment, scientists, finance, fashion, and sports.

Costs of attending Bowdoin College 2022-2023

Tuition costs - $60,952

Fees - $576

Room - $8,050

Board - $8,722

Health insurance - $2,396

Books and supplies - $840

Personal expenses - $1,250 (not including travel)

Total costs of attendance - $82,786

Access Bowdoin’s Net Price Calculator

Bowdoin College Statistics at a Glance

Data from Bowdoin College website and Common Data Sets.

Sports at Bowdoin College

Bowdoin College belongs in NCAA Division 3, and the NCAA rules and calendar for athlete recruitment apply to athletes interested in being athlete recruited to Bowdoin College.

Bowdoin College, a liberal arts college with an undergraduate enrollment of 1,948 students, plays a total of 30 NCAA sports, 14 of them for men and 16 for women. In the 2021/2022 season, Bowdoin College had a total of 778 NCAA athletes comprising 40% of the total student body.

See:

What NCAA sports does Bowdoin College play?

Bowdoin College’s athlete recruitment policies

What you can expect from Bowdoin College

Bowdoin’s mission is twofold, the first is the education of the student’s mind and the exploration of the student’s creative faculties and the second is the development of the student’s social and leadership abilities.

Bowdoin makes it a point to select students with varied gifts, diverse social, geographic and racial backgrounds and exceptional qualities of mind and character.

It pursues its mission in 5 domains: Intellectual and academic, Social and residential, Athletic, Esthetic and environmental and Ethical. It is through these 5 domains that Bowdoin aims to educate and develop its students into a complete individual for a world in flux.

Is Bowdoin College hard to get into?

With a 9% acceptance rate for both the Classes of 2025 and 2026, Bowdoin is a difficult college to gain admission to.

With 88% of its matriculated students for the class of 2025 submitting test scores, it is quite clear that Bowdoin uses test scores as a strong indicator of college readiness and ability to handle an intellectually rigorous college curriculum. The reported middle 50% range for SAT was 1330-1510 and for ACT, it was 31-34.

Aspiring applicants should be very clear that they will increase their chances of admission if their test scores fall within or exceed the middle 50% ranges published for the Class of 2025.

As with any highly selective college with a single digit acceptance rate, it is material for applicants to present as both academic high achievers and as passionate individuals pursuing unique activities beyond academics who possess qualities valued at Bowdoin.

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

According to Bowdoin College, 92% of its graduating class of 2020 were either employed (78%), in graduate school (14%), joined military service or fellowships 6 months after graduation.

Highlights of employers who hire Bowdoin College undergraduates:

• Amazon

• Analysis Group

• Apple

• Athenahealth

• Bain Consulting

• Barclays

• Bloomberg

• Bloomingdales

• Booz Allen Hamilton

• Brigham and Women’s Hospital

• Cambridge Associates

• Children’s Hospital (Boston)

• Citigroup

• Conde Nast

• Dana Farber Cancer Institute

• Deloitte

• EMI Strategic Marketing

• ESPN

• Fidelity Investments

• General Reinsurance

• Goldman Sachs

• Google

• Guggenheim Partners

• Harlem Children’s Zone

• Harvard University

• HBO

• HSBC

• IBM

• Intel

• Jackson Laboratory

• JP Morgan Chase

• Kaiser Associates

• LEGO

• Lyft

• Massachusetts General Hospital

• McKinsey and Company

• Merrill Lynch

• Morgan Stanley

• OKTA

• Peace Corps

• Piper Jaffray

• Procter and Gamble

• Prudential Financial

• Raytheon

• Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom

• Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

• Sothebys

• Suffolk Construction

• Sullivan and Cromwell

• Teach for America

• US Department of Justice

• US Department of State

• US Marine Corps

• Uber

• Uncommon Schools

• Unum

• Wayfair

• Year Up

Earnings Data for Bowdoin 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 213 responses

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