Carleton Admits International Applicants at a Fraction of Its Domestic Rates

Carleton College's published acceptance rate for the Fall 2025 entering class was 21.78%, from 1,480 admits out of 6,796 first-year applicants. That single figure hides two very different sets of odds. In-state applicants were admitted at 34.75%. Out-of-state applicants were admitted at 39.27% — both comfortably above the headline rate. International applicants were admitted at 4.01% — less than an eighth of either domestic rate. That's not a modest residency tilt. It's a different admissions environment, and it held the same shape a year earlier.

The Decomposition

All figures are from Carleton College's Common Data Set, Section C1 residency supplement, for the Fall 2025 entering cohort, filed by the Carleton Office of Institutional Research and Assessment.

Show the math: 221 of 636 in-state applicants were admitted, and 221 / 636 = 34.75%. Out-of-state, 1,127 of 2,870 applicants were admitted, and 1,127 / 2,870 = 39.27%. Subtract the two and the domestic gap is 39.27 − 34.75 = 4.52 percentage points — out-of-state applicants had a modestly easier path than in-state applicants, but both cleared a third of their pool. International applicants are a different calculation: 132 of 3,290 were admitted, and 132 / 3,290 = 4.01%.

Where the Real Gap Is

The number worth paying attention to at Carleton isn't the in-state versus out-of-state split — both domestic groups cleared well over a third of their pool. It's international status. In-state applicants cleared 34.75%, out-of-state 39.27%, and international applicants sat at 4.01% — under a tenth of the lower domestic rate. The gap held in Fall 2024, too: 30.39% in-state, 36.65% out-of-state, 4.70% international.

Carleton's Common Data Set doesn't explain why the international rate sits so far below either domestic rate, and this series doesn't speculate about admissions criteria the college hasn't published. What the data shows is the size of the gap, repeated across two entering classes. If you're applying to Carleton from outside the United States, 21.78% is not a reasonable estimate of your odds — something closer to 4% is a far more accurate starting point.

What Carleton Doesn't Publish: A Reliable Early Decision Rate

Carleton offers binding Early Decision, with a first-round closing date of November 15 and a second closing date of January 15. But Carleton's Common Data Set collects only one combined Early Decision figure covering both rounds together, and in the most recent filing, that figure contradicts Carleton's own prior filing.

The 2025-2026 Common Data Set prints its Section C21 Early Decision block under the header "For the Fall 2024 entering class," reporting 760 ED applications and 263 ED admits. But Carleton's own 2024-2025 Common Data Set, filed while Fall 2024 was the actual current cohort, reports a different figure for that same stated cohort: 667 ED applications and 244 ED admits. Two of Carleton's own filings disagree about the same entering class.

That's a filing-template problem, not an attempt to conceal anything — Carleton isn't withholding an Early Decision figure so much as its own paperwork has stopped agreeing with itself year over year, and it isn't unique to Carleton. We found the same stale, self-contradicting section at several colleges using the same Common Data Set template; see the Common Data Set Early Decision problem for the full pattern across 15 schools. Because neither number can be trusted on its own, we're not publishing an Early Decision admit rate for Carleton this cycle, for either year. If you see an ED rate for Carleton elsewhere, ask which of the two conflicting filings it came from.

What Else Carleton Doesn't Publish

Carleton's Common Data Set Section C9 reports that 39.40% of the enrolled Fall 2025 class submitted SAT scores and 24.70% submitted ACT scores. That describes the composition of students who already enrolled — it is not an admit rate broken out by whether an applicant submitted test scores, and no such split has been published by Carleton. Carleton also doesn't report admissions data by intended major, and as a single-campus college, there's no campus-level breakdown to report.

What This Means for Your Application

A domestic admit rate in the mid-to-high 30s, with a modest but real edge for out-of-state applicants, means Carleton is a genuine reach for any U.S. applicant — but not an especially long-shot one, and the residency gap here is worth noting even though it's far smaller than the international divide. For international applicants, the calculus is starker: a 4.01% admit rate belongs in the same planning bucket as the most selective schools in the country, and it should shape how many similarly selective reaches you're willing to carry elsewhere on your list.

Because Carleton's own Early Decision data can't be verified this cycle, timeline planning has to lean on what is confirmed rather than on an unverifiable admit-rate edge. Our application deadline tracker can help you keep Carleton's binding Early Decision deadline lined up against the rest of your list without guessing at a rate we can't confirm. If you're weighing how a 4%-to-39% spread like this should shape your overall list, our free college list builder is built for exactly that kind of balancing. And if you want to talk through where a school like Carleton fits in your specific strategy, a free strategy call is a low-pressure way to work through it.

The Pattern Held in Fall 2024

Both domestic rates rose by four to five points between the two years, while the international rate actually ticked down slightly, from 4.70% to 4.01%. The domestic gap held roughly steady too — 6.26 points separated in-state from out-of-state in Fall 2024, versus 4.52 points in Fall 2025. What didn't change is which group sits apart from the other two. International applicants were admitted at under 5% in both years, while every domestic rate cleared 30%. Two years running, the divide that matters most at Carleton is international status, not which U.S. state an applicant calls home.