What You'll Actually Pay
Price after grants
$6,384 to $30,019 a year for in-state students, depending on income.
College Scorecard 2024 estimate · in-state rates
See the price at your income ↑Sticker price
Full cost before aid: $32,446 a year in-state. Average need-based aid package: $23,322.Aid and debt
$19,384
average debt at graduation
3,695
students got merit aid
about 9% of undergraduates
$4,362
average merit award
Not reported by this school: share receiving need-based grants.
Getting In
Key dates
Test scores
Washington does not use SAT or ACT scores in admission decisions. The ranges below describe only the students who submitted a score anyway — they were not part of the decision.
SAT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 1320–1502 · 19% of the class submitted
ACT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 30–34 · 5% of the class submitted
What they value
- Very important
- Course rigor (AP/IB)
- GPA
- Personal essay
- In-state residency
- Important
- Extracurriculars
- Special talent
- First-gen status
- Volunteer work
- Work experience
- Considered
- Character
- Not considered
- Class rank
- SAT/ACT scores
- Recommendations
- Legacy status
- Where you're from
- Demonstrated interest
What this means for you
Washington rates course rigor and your essay as Very Important, and your activities and your first-gen status as Important.
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Rigor means AP, IB, and dual enrollment carry real weight — make sure your mix of AP or IB courses is strong. The essay is weighted like your GPA. Depth and leadership in a few activities matter more than a long list. And being first-generation can help your application here.
Washington doesn't consider demonstrated interest in admissions at all — visits and follow-up emails won't move the needle here.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section C7 (admissions factors)
Washington just showed you what it values in an application. Use that to write a Why-Washington essay that's actually about you — not a template.
Get sourced starting points for your essayStudent Life
28.5% of Washington classes have fewer than 20 students.
28.5%
under 20 students
42.9%
20 to 49
28.6%
50 or more
Every class section counts, labs and seminars included; first-year courses tend to be larger. Washington CDS 2025–26, I-3.
21:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus life
25.9%
first-years from out of state
24.4%
live on campus
6.76%
of men in fraternities
9.13%
of women in sororities
Greek-life participation from UW OFSL (2025) — not reported in Washington's 2025–26 Common Data Set.
Who attends
- White32.9%
- Asian24.6%
- Hispanic11%
- Unknown / other9.4%
- Multiracial8.2%
- Black4.1%
Enrolled undergraduates; international students are counted separately and not included. Washington CDS 2025–26, B2.
Popular majors
Will They Graduate?
74.6% of Washington students graduate in 4 years.
74.6%
finish in 4 years
Entered fall 2019
85%
finish in 6 years
Entered fall 2019
95%
return after first year
Finishing late means paying for extra semesters, so the 4-year rate is the one that shows the cost.
Students with Pell Grants
79% finish in 6 years, against 85% of all students.
A 6-point gap: Pell Grant students finish less often than students overall.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Seattle.
Seattle is a genuine major city and the campus sits inside it rather than beside it — ten minutes north of downtown, wedged between Portage Bay and Lake Washington, with the University District's buses and cheap restaurants running right up to the edge of the Quad.
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Mountains and salt water are close enough to be part of an ordinary weekend, and the grey, wet stretch from November through March is long and real. The honest caveat is cost: Seattle is one of the more expensive cities in the country to live in, rents run well above the national median, and a family should price out four years of off-campus housing here before falling for the setting.
The City
Major city
Seattle, WA
Best For
Notable alumni
Notable Alumni
Bruce Lee
The martial artist and actor who brought kung fu cinema to a global audience; he enrolled here in 1961 to study philosophy and taught martial arts in Seattle to support himself, leaving in 1964 without finishing the degree.
Linda B. Buck
Won the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the family of odorant receptors that lets the brain distinguish thousands of smells.
Thomas S. Foley
Served as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1989 to 1995, then as U.S. ambassador to Japan.
Warren Moon
Quarterbacked Washington to victory in the 1978 Rose Bowl as the game's most valuable player, and later became the first Black quarterback inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Jeffrey Brotman
Co-founded Costco in 1982 and chaired the company until his death in 2017, building it into one of the largest retailers in the world.
Gary Kildall
Wrote CP/M, the first widely used operating system for personal computers, and founded Digital Research to sell it.
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
Traditions
Traditions
Cherry blossoms in the Quad
Twenty-nine Yoshino cherry trees, moved to the Liberal Arts Quadrangle from the Washington Park Arboretum in 1962, bloom for about two weeks each March. The university publishes peak-bloom predictions and the Quad fills with tens of thousands of visitors while they are open.
Sailgating
Husky Stadium sits on the shore of Union Bay, and thousands of fans arrive for home football games by boat, anchoring or taking a dock slip and walking in from the water. The practice goes back to the stadium's opening in 1920 and makes this one of only a handful of college stadiums in the country you can reach without a car.
Dubs, the live husky
The university keeps a live Alaskan Malamute as its mascot, who leads the football team onto the field before home games and appears at events across campus. The current Dubs is the fourteenth live husky in a line stretching back to the 1920s.
Weekend escapes from Seattle
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Seattle
Snoqualmie Pass
1 hourFour linked ski areas an hour east on I-90, with night skiing close enough to go after class and be back the same evening; in summer the same trailheads are the standard day hike.
Mount Rainier National Park
2 hours 15 minutesThe 14,410-foot volcano you can see from campus on a clear day, with wildflower meadows at Paradise and glacier viewpoints an easy walk from the road.
Vancouver, British Columbia
2 hours 30 minutesA major international city straight up I-5, and the big-weekend trip. It needs a passport and a border crossing, so it takes more planning than the drive time suggests.
Getting there and game days
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA)
30 minutes from campus
Flies international — you can start a trip abroad from here.
Pro sports nearby
- Seattle Seahawks NFL15 minutes away
- Seattle Mariners MLB15 minutes away
- Seattle Kraken NHL15 minutes away
- Seattle Sounders FC MLS15 minutes away
- Seattle Storm WNBA15 minutes away
Internships and jobs nearby
Career Proximity
Seattle is one of a very small number of American cities where a student can intern at a company that defines its industry without leaving town. Amazon's headquarters is roughly fifteen minutes south of campus in South Lake Union, Microsoft is about twenty-five minutes east in Redmond, and Boeing builds aircraft north and south of the city. The research side is just as close: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center sits a mile from campus and the Gates Foundation is downtown, which puts global health and biotech work within a bus ride rather than a summer relocation.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- Amazon
- Microsoft
- Boeing
- Starbucks
- Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
Downtown Seattle and South Lake Union, about 15 minutes south of campus; the Eastside tech corridor in Redmond and Bellevue is about 25 minutes east across Lake Washington
Who thrives here
Who Thrives Here
Washington is a 703-acre campus wedged between two lakes ten minutes north of downtown Seattle, and the city is inseparable from what it offers: Amazon is fifteen minutes south, Microsoft twenty-five minutes east, and a student can hold an internship at a company that defines its industry without leaving town. The counterweight is what living there costs, and it is not small — only 24.4% of undergraduates live in university housing, so a family should price four years of Seattle rent before falling for the setting. Admissions work on a different principle here: standardized test scores are Not Considered, class rank is Not Considered, and the application essay is rated Very Important, which is unusual for a public university of this size. State residency is Very Important too, and the enrolled class shows it — 64.5% of first-years are Washingtonians against 25.9% from out of state. The scale shows up in the classroom — 28.5% of sections have fewer than 20 students, at 21 to 1 — and a student who needs small rooms to stay engaged should go in knowing that. Outcomes hold: 95.0% of first-years return, 74.6% graduate in four years and 85.0% within six, and the year peaks quietly in March when the twenty-nine cherry trees in the Quad bloom for a fortnight. Two cautions worth naming: Washington meets 74.0% of demonstrated need rather than all of it, and the gap between $13,406 in state and $44,640 out of it decides this school for most families before anything else does. Borrowers leave owing $19,384.