Kenyon College

Quick Stats

Ransom Hall
Gambier, OH 43022-9623: [map]

Phone: (740) 427-5000

2011-2012 Tuition

$42,630: tuition and fees

Students

1,632: enrolled

46%: male /

54%: female

Admissions

Jan. 15: application deadline

39.3%: accepted

More Information

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U.S. News Rankings

Ranking score and category

U.S. News rank	Category Name
#33	National Liberal Arts Colleges

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Summary

Kenyon College is a private institution that was founded in 1824. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 1,632, its setting is rural, and the campus size is 1,200 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar. Kenyon College's ranking in the 2012 edition of Best Colleges is National Liberal Arts Colleges, 33. Its tuition and fees are $42,630 (2011-12).

In Gambier, Ohio, it’s hard to tell where the Kenyon College campus stops and the small downtown begins. The hilly campus of the liberal arts college runs into the town’s quaint shops, and the main walkway of campus, Middle Path, intersects downtown. On campus, there are more than 150 student clubs and organizations, including about a dozen fraternities and sororities. The Kenyon student body has slightly more females than males, and freshmen must live in a common residential area. Students are allowed to bring televisions to their dorm rooms, but freshmen rooms do not have cable, and most upperclass students’ rooms don’t, either. A third of students play on the varsity Lords and Ladies sports teams, which compete in the NCAA Division III North Coast Athletic Conference. The school offers more than 150 study abroad opportunities, including the Kenyon-Honduras Archaeology and Anthropology Program and the Kenyon in Rome program. For a different experience closer to home, Columbus—the state capital and home of Ohio State University—is a 45-mile drive away. Each year, students celebrate the impending spring season with a semi-formal dance, known as the Philander’s Phebruary Phling. Students begin and end their time at Kenyon in song, as the First-Year Sing and Senior Sing are two of the biggest traditions on campus.

The Brown Family Environmental Center is the 382-acre nature preserve on campus. At the site, Kenyon students can take courses in biology, ecology, and environmental science, as well as hike, bird watch, and volunteer. Students can also engage in outdoor learning in the surrounding rural community through programs and projects coordinated by the Rural Life Center. Actor Paul Newman, poet James Wright, and former Prime Minister of Sweden Olof Palme are among Kenyon’s notable graduates.

School mission (as provided by the school):

Kenyon College, among the nation's finest liberal arts institutions, takes pride in exceptionally strong programs in English (Kenyon is the home of the internationally known Kenyon Review), the sciences, and drama. Student-faculty interaction, both in and out of the classroom, and community involvement are hallmarks of the Kenyon experience. Kenyon students, who come from all 50 states and many countries, enjoy an active extracurricular life, with more than 140 student organizations. Kenyon teams compete in 22 sports--11 each for men and women-and the swimming and diving teams are renowned for their record-breaking number of national championships. The Kenyon campus is noted for its beauty and the quality of its facilities, including a $32-million science center, a $70-million fitness, recreation, and athletic center, and a new art gallery and studio art center under construction.

General Information

School type	private, coed college
Year founded	1824
Religious affiliation	N/A
Academic calendar	semester
Setting	rural
2010 Endowment	$158,752,274

Applying

When applying to Kenyon College, it's important to note the application deadline is January 15, and the early decision deadline is November 15. Scores for either the ACT or SAT test are due January 15. The application fee at Kenyon College is $50. It is more selective, with an acceptance rate of 39.3 percent.

For more information about the tests, essays, interviews, and admissions process, visit the Applying to College knowledge center.

Selectivity	more selective
Fall 2010 acceptance rate	39%
Application deadline	January 15
SAT/ACT scores must be received by	January 15

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Academic Life

The student-faculty ratio at Kenyon College is 10:1, and the school has 68.2 percent of its classes with fewer than 20 students. The most popular majors at Kenyon College include: English Language and Literature, General; Economics, General; Political Science and Government, General; Psychology, General; and History, General. The average freshman retention rate, an indicator of student satisfaction, is 93.0 percent.

Class sizes

Student-faculty ratio

10:1

4-year graduation rate

85% - High

Five most popular majors for 2010 graduates

English Language and Literature, General	14%
Economics, General	11%
Political Science and Government, General	9%
Psychology, General	9%
History, General	8%

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Student Life

Kenyon College has a total undergraduate enrollment of 1,632, with a gender distribution of 46.4 percent male students and 53.6 percent female students. 98.0 percent of the students live in college-owned, -operated, or -affiliated housing and 2.0 percent of students live off campus. Kenyon College is part of the NCAA III athletic conference.

See what students are saying about life at Kenyon College.

Total enrollment	1,632
Student gender distribution

Undergraduate men who are members of a fraternity

Undergraduate women who are members of a sorority

Collegiate athletic association	NCAA III

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Campus Info & Services

Kenyon College offers a number of student services including nonremedial tutoring, women's center, placement service, health service, and health insurance. Kenyon College also offers campus safety and security services like 24-hour foot and vehicle patrols, late night transport/escort service, 24-hour emergency telephones, lighted pathways/sidewalks, student patrols, and controlled dormitory access (key, security card, etc). Of the students at Kenyon College, 50 percent have cars on campus. Alcohol is permitted for students of legal age at Kenyon College.

Students who have cars on campus	50% - Medium
Health insurance offered	Yes
Students required to own/lease a computer	No

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Paying for School

At Kenyon College, 43.4 percent of full-time undergraduates receive some kind of need-based financial aid and the average need-based scholarship or grant award is $30,415.

Paying for college doesn't have to be difficult or devastating. Go to the Paying for College knowledge center to get advice on raising cash and reducing costs.

Tuition and fees	$42,630 (2011-12)
Room and board	$10,020 (2011-12) - Medium
Financial aid statistics

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Student Reviews Ratings data provided by Unigo

Kenyon is a tiny school in a tiny town - it's too small and isolated for me, but that's obviously something of personal taste, though that tends to be the feeling after four years. This lends itself to an excellent academic atmosphere in which students and professors interact outside of the classroom when they bump into each other getting coffee or at performance, etc. Unfortunately, this also creates a very intense social situation in which you live in closes quarters for four years just over 1000 people. The best thing about Kenyon is the small classes and the professors. I would change the Greek system, either by getting rid of it, or adding legitimate, NATIONAL sororities to give girls an option equivalent to the entrenched fraternity system, which controls much of the social life (basically, the school needs to make up its mind, since it is very Greek, but pretends not to be). When I tell people I go to Kenyon, they either have never heard of it (most often), or know someone who went there/have no strong reaction. Well, I spend just about all of my time on campus, like everyone, and on campus, I am outside when it's nice, in the coffee shop, bookstore, or study lounge working and socializing, or in my room trying to snag a bit of time alone. The town of Gambier and Kenyon really aren't separated; in fact, Kenyon's campus exists on either side of the main drag of town, so it's all basically the school. It has a couple of bars and a deli, coffee shop, etc, but nothing else. You NEED a car, even just to go to a movie or to buy toiletries. Kenyon's administration seems to be a bit out of touch with the reality of the school, maybe trying to make it into some "New Ivy" cookie-cutter school. The most recent campus controversy was over the proposed addition of swipe-card entrances to dorms, which was loudly and overwhelmingly opposed by students. The administration wanted to appease parents, and students want to keep Kenyon the small-town kind of community that it is. There is a certain kind of school pride - not in athletics, except for from athletes, but in its quirkiness. I'm not sure if Kenyon is all that different from a lot of small, rural liberal arts schools - they all have their traditions and quirks, but I will say that that experience is very singular and bonding. You could take two kids from the same class who are different and never meet, and in ten years, they would have very different memories.

Sara Junior

The best thing about Kenyon is how students stick together. It's a small community , and the students are definitely their own little group within it. Unfortunately, the school is trying really hard to be an Ivy-type school with less personality. It used to be that most people at Kenyon were really unique, smart, and usually quirky people, but now it's pretty cookie cutter students from New England prep schools. Again, most people haven't heard of Kenyon, so when I tell them I went there, they kind of go blank. It's OK, I know how good of a school it is, even if they don't. There have been a LOT of recent controversies at Kenyon, most of them to do with the administration making unilateral decisions about student life. I spent most of my time at Middle Ground, the coffee shop on campus, or at the Cove, which used to be the only bar in town. There are a lot of unusual things about Kenyon -- its basically in the middle of a corn field, so you're going to have your unique experiences.

Cap Alum

The best thing about Kenyon is the academics. Come rain, come shine, the academics make everything else worth it. I spend most of my time in my room or at the library, alternately doing homework and taking a break from doing homework by chilling with friends, watching movies, etc. Then on the weekends we spend a lot of time at the coffee shop, MiddleGround, which is sort of a social hub, or out at parties in dorm lounges and apartments. There is often a lot of drama surrounding the administration--I think the student body feels that they don't listen enough to student input in making decisions, but really I just think that Kenyon tends to be afraid of change. For example, the whole school is in an uproar over the pending installation of a proxy card security system on the outer doors of the residence halls. It's really just to quell parent fears after stuff like Virginia Tech, but everyone's got their panties in a twist because it's going to be tough to get used to carrying a card everywhere. We LOVE the whole "Kenyon community" thing. We love being able to brag that we don't have to lock our doors at night. I think that's one thing that people have a lot of pride about. The small town close-knit community thing is really what makes us Kenyon. I swear, the admissions brochures aren't lying. We have so much school pride. Nearly everyone who's ever been affiliated with Kenyon--students, faculty, alumni--we don't just like Kenyon, we LOVE Kenyon, and we will talk to you about it all day. If you meet a Kenyon grad on the street, you're automatically best friends. From talking to friends who go to other schools, I think it's rare and very special to love your school as much as we do. And you'll see more spirit wear on campus than you can shake a stick at. We love that purple.

Emmy Freshman

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* Overview details based on 2010 data

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Summary

General Information

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