What You'll Actually Pay
Price after grants
$16,496 to $58,741 a year, depending on income.
College Scorecard 2024 estimate
See the price at your income ↑Sticker price
Full cost before aid: $84,793 a year. Average need-based aid package: $57,544.Aid and debt
37.6%
receive need-based grants
$43,841
average debt at graduation
560
students got merit aid
about 8% of undergraduates
$34,235
average merit award
Getting In
Admit rates
28.1%
admitted overall
59.8%
admitted Early Decision
25.9%
admitted Regular Decision
Early Decision
Early Decision applicants were admitted at nearly 2x the Regular Decision rate, and Early Decision is binding: you commit to attend if admitted.
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Some of that gap reflects who applies early (recruited athletes, legacy applicants and highly committed students concentrate in that pool), so it isn't proof that applying early would raise any one student's own odds.
Key dates
Test scores
SAT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 1420–1490 · 19% of the class submitted
ACT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 32–34 · 9% of the class submitted
81% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What they value
- Very important
- Course rigor (AP/IB)
- GPA
- Personal essay
- Important
- Recommendations
- Extracurriculars
- Special talent
- Character
- Volunteer work
- Considered
- Class rank
- SAT/ACT scores
- First-gen status
- Legacy status
- Where you're from
- In-state residency
- Work experience
- Not considered
- Demonstrated interest
What this means for you
Villanova rates course rigor and your essay as Very Important, and your recommendations and your activities 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. Recommendations matter here too — a recommender who knows you well helps. And depth and leadership in a few activities matter more than a long list.
Villanova 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)
Villanova just showed you what it values in an application. Use that to write a Why-Villanova essay that's actually about you — not a template.
Get sourced starting points for your essayStudent Life
46.3% of Villanova classes have fewer than 20 students.
46.3%
under 20 students
52%
20 to 49
1.7%
50 or more
Every class section counts, labs and seminars included; first-year courses tend to be larger. Villanova CDS 2025–26, I-3.
9:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus life
93.9%
first-years from out of state
82%
live on campus
17%
of men in fraternities
39%
of women in sororities
Who attends
- White67.7%
- Hispanic11.7%
- Asian6.3%
- Black5.8%
- Multiracial4.3%
- Unknown / other2%
Enrolled undergraduates; international students are counted separately and not included. Villanova CDS 2025–26, B2.
Popular majors
Will They Graduate?
89.4% of Villanova students graduate in 4 years.
89.4%
finish in 4 years
Entered fall 2019
92.7%
finish in 6 years
Entered fall 2019
95.2%
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
93% finish in 6 years, against 92.7% of all students.
Pell Grant students finish at about the same rate as everyone else.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Villanova.
Villanova is a suburban campus on Philadelphia's historic Main Line, twelve miles west of the city, and the thing that decides daily life here is that three SEPTA train stops sit on campus.
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The Paoli/Thorndale Regional Rail line runs direct from campus to Center City in about thirty-five minutes, and a free university shuttle covers the Main Line towns — Ardmore, Bryn Mawr, Wayne — in between. The trade-off is honest: this is a green, gothic, self-contained campus rather than a city one, so Philadelphia is something students go to rather than something they live in.
The City
Major city
Villanova, PA
Best For
Notable alumni
Notable Alumni
Pope Leo XIV
Elected the 267th pope in May 2025, the first American and the first Augustinian friar to hold the office. Born Robert Francis Prevost, he took a mathematics degree here in 1977 and entered the Order of St. Augustine that September, later spending two decades as a missionary and bishop in Peru.
Class of 1977
Jim Croce
Singer-songwriter behind "Time in a Bottle" and "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown", inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1990. He led the Villanova Singers as an undergraduate and graduated in 1965, eight years before he died in a plane crash at thirty.
Class of 1965
Jalen Brunson
Led Villanova to the 2018 national championship as the consensus college player of the year, and is now an All-NBA guard and captain of the New York Knicks. He finished his communications degree in three years.
Class of 2018
Chris Gheysens
President and chief executive of Wawa since 2013, running the roughly 1,000-store chain that is a fixture of the region the university sits in. He took an accounting degree from the Villanova School of Business in 1993 and started out at Deloitte.
Class of 1993
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
Traditions
Traditions
Special Olympics Fall Festival
The largest student-run Special Olympics event in the world, held on campus every November for thirty-seven consecutive years. More than 1,100 athletes compete across six sports, supported by a student committee of over a hundred and around 1,100 student volunteers — the clearest single expression of what the Augustinian service commitment means here in practice.
St. Thomas of Villanova Day of Service
One September Saturday when the whole university — students, staff, faculty, alumni and families — fans out to more than a hundred service sites across greater Philadelphia. It has run since 2006 and now draws over four thousand people in a single day.
Wildcat basketball, on campus and downtown
The season opens with Hoops Mania at the Finneran Pavilion in October, and Villanova splits its home schedule between that on-campus arena and the Wells Fargo Center in South Philadelphia. Big East basketball is the one thing that reliably pulls the campus into the city.
Weekend escapes from Villanova
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Villanova
Philadelphia
About 35 minutes by trainDirect from the Regional Rail stop on campus to Suburban Station in Center City, which is why a car is optional here.
Valley Forge National Historical Park
About 15 minutesThirty-five hundred acres of Revolutionary War ground with twenty-six miles of hiking and biking trails, close enough for an afternoon. No public transport reaches it.
New York City
About 2 hours 30 minutes by trainChange at 30th Street Station onto the Northeast Corridor — long enough to be a weekend rather than a day.
Getting there and game days
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Philadelphia International Airport (PHL)
20 minutes from campus
Flies international — you can start a trip abroad from here.
Pro sports nearby
- Philadelphia Eagles NFL
- Philadelphia Phillies MLB
- Philadelphia 76ers NBA
- Philadelphia Flyers NHL
Internships and jobs nearby
Career Proximity
Villanova sits at the western end of the Philadelphia job market and reaches it by commuter rail, which is why term-time internships here are a train ride rather than a summer relocation. The university's own career reporting points at accounting, financial services, hospital systems and engineering employers across the region.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- PricewaterhouseCoopers
- Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
- EY
- JPMorganChase
- Lockheed Martin
Center City Philadelphia — about 35 minutes by SEPTA Regional Rail from the station on campus
Who thrives here
Who Thrives Here
Villanova admits 28.1% of applicants overall but 59.8% through early decision, so the binding application is a real lever here. It is a residential campus — 82% of undergraduates live in university housing — twelve miles from Philadelphia on the Main Line, with SEPTA Regional Rail stops on campus that reach Center City in about thirty-five minutes. Greek life is uneven by gender: 17% of men and 39% of women join. Service is not a brochure line here — the student-run Special Olympics Fall Festival has been held on campus every November for thirty-seven years. The academic delivery is what families pay for: 9 students per faculty member, 95.2% freshman retention, and 89.4% finishing in four years. The cost is the argument against it. Tuition and fees run $74,014, Villanova meets 82.6% of demonstrated need, and its graduates leave with $43,841 in average debt; 560 students receive non-need-based awards averaging $34,235, so merit money exists but reaches a small share of the class. Only 46.3% of classes have fewer than 20 students, which is fewer than a small private's reputation suggests.