NYU is one of the greatest universities for a liberal studies major. Its name carries weight, and any field you plan to tackle may find a degree from NYU’s Liberal Studies program quite impressive.
However, getting your foot in the door will not be easy.
Some students imagine that attending NYU for their Liberal Studies program essentially means they’ll have an easier time getting in than for programs like finance or nursing.
While for some majors that may be true, it doesn’t make the NYU Liberal Studies program any easier to get accepted into.
To get accepted into NYU for Liberal Studies, you’ll still need to be at the top of your class, have a plethora of impressive extracurriculars, and write remarkable essays. But, if your GPA isn’t strong or your resume is lacking, you still have a chance.
In this article, we’ll be discussing the acceptance details in depth.
In particular, we’ll cover how hard it is to get accepted into Liberal Studies at NYU. We’ll also be covering the NYU Liberal Studies acceptance rate, how to get accepted, and using the NYU essay to stand out.
Table of Contents
- Is it Easy to Get Into Liberal Studies at NYU?
- NYU Liberal Studies Admissions Statistics
- How to Get Accepted Into NYU for Liberal Studies.
- Conclusion.
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Is it Easy to Get Into Liberal Studies at NYU?
Nope!
It’s not easy to get accepted into Liberal Studies at NYU. In fact, it’s going to be hard to get accepted into NYU no matter what program you’re applying for. However, note that NYU’s Liberal Studies program will be easier in comparison to other competitive programs like Stern.
Nonetheless, you still have a chance of getting in.
There are still a small handful of students who get accepted into NYU with a below-average GPA; and, some of them have even lower GPAs than most expect.
However, you need to be aware of your chances beforehand and plan accordingly based on your GPA.
Here are some important data for NYU’s acceptance rate that you should consider.
2989 men enrolled. 3712 women enrolled. In total, 6701 people enrolled. Now, let’s take a look at GPA scores in relation to this statistic.
1% of students who enrolled had a GPA of 2.5-2.99. That’s approximately 67 students. 4% of students who enrolled had a GPA between 3.0 and 3.24. That’s 268 students. You can do the math with the data above.
Here’s the thing, though: most students were accepted with a GPA of 3.5-3.74. So, you don’t need to be at the 99th percentile of intelligence to get accepted into NYU. It certainly helps; but, even being above average still makes you, well… average.
Will it be good to have a perfect GPA? Sure! Is it necessary to get accepted into NYU’s Liberal Studies program? No.
So, there’s a bit of optimism to shine into all this pessimism!
NYU Liberal Studies Admissions Statistics
With some of the basic data considered, let’s get more in-depth with NYU’s Liberal Studies admissions statistics.
These next few sections are going to cover the Liberal Studies’ acceptance rate, what to make of it, and the GPA we recommend you have when applying. We’ll also discuss what to do if you’re above or below the GPA range we recommend.
What is NYU Liberal Studies’ Acceptance Rate?
Here’s what NYU has to say about its Liberal Studies application process.
“Admission to Liberal Studies is highly selective. The NYU Office of Admissions carefully considers each candidate’s application and gives weight to a number of factors: academic record, standardized test scores, recommendations from counselors and teachers, and essays. The committee also seeks a class that is diverse in all respects and carefully considers each applicant’s special talents, geographic location, and more. The Admissions committee is also interested in applicants who have an active and sustained level of involvement in school and/or community activities and who have taken on the responsibility of leadership.”
NYU Official Website –Liberal Studies Admissions
Unfortunately, NYU’s Liberal Studies program does not explicitly say what their acceptance rate is. However, we can make general inferences based on similar programs and their rates of acceptance.
“The College of Arts & Science at NYU received a record 67,000 applications for the Class of 2027, and in the past week made offers to just 4% of those who applied.”
NYU Official Website –ADMISSION RATE FOR THE COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCE
Because NYU’s acceptance rate hovers around the single digits all across the board, we can infer that NYU’s Liberal Studies acceptance rate most probably is at the same level. In addition, it’s only going to get more difficult to get accepted with every passing year.
Thus, you’re going to need every possible advantage in your resume and application to truly stand out to admissions officers.
This brings up another question: the GPA needed for NYU’s Liberal Studies program.
What GPA do you need for NYU Liberal Studies?
We’re going to bring in the GPA distribution from NYU’s Common Data Set once more.
Here, the following data indicates how many people got accepted into NYU based on GPA. However, this applies to all schools and not just one individual school. So, the GPA variance for Liberal Studies may be different from that of other programs.
Generally speaking, we would recommend falling in the 3.7 GPA category or more to have a decent shot at acceptance to NYU’s Liberal Studies program.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t apply if you have a GPA lower than 3.7 such as a 3.5. It just means your chances may be slimmer, and you may need to do more to compensate for a lacking academic profile.
If you’re applying to NYU’s Liberal Studies program with a GPA below 3.7, we would highly recommend speaking with an expert to see what your options are to increase your admissions chances.
This brings us to the next topic: important elements to getting accepted into NYU for Liberal Studies.
How to Get Accepted Into NYU for Liberal Studies.
The NYU Liberal Studies acceptance rate may be horrendously low.
But, there are still quite a lot of things you can do to increase your admissions chances despite low academic performance.
In the next following sections, we’ll be discussing more details on NYU’s Common Data Set, the importance of the GPA in NYU’s Application process, and our recommended process for boosting extracurriculars if your resume is lacking.
NYU’s Common Data Set.
Like most schools, academic performance is going to be an important element of admissions. Let’s take a look at what they look for in particular.
NYU values 5 different factors a lot in their application process:
- Academic rigor
- Class rank
- GPA
- Standardized Test Scores (SAT/ACT)
- Talent/Ability (Therefore application essay)
We’ll discuss the nuance of #5 later.
For the first 4 items, NYU is going to use these as a metric to determine your ability to perform well on their campus. It’s not to say that they’re the ONLY elements considered in your application. There are multiple moving parts to NYU’s application process, after all. However, these are their primary variables to judge you on.
Thus, to get accepted into NYU, you’re going to want to have an academic profile matching the following list as close as possible.
- A good number of AP courses per year
- Being in the top 30% of your academic class or higher (this varies depending on your school’s competitiveness)
- An unweighted GPA of 3.7 or above
- SAT
- Evidence-Based Reading + Writing: 700 or more
- Math: 750 or more
- ACT
- 32 or more
We’ve also pasted the SAT and ACT expectations below.
Having a Strong Set of Extracurriculars That Stand Out.
If you look back at the previous photo on NYU’s Common Data Set, you’ll see that ECs are important but not as important as academics.
Nonetheless, it’s still crucial to have a strong set of ECs that are going to help you stand out from the rest of the admissions pool.
A strong set of extracurriculars are going to be activities such as clubs, leadership positions, startup projects, or other miscellaneous projects like short stories written or digital art accounts that show your talents and productive use of free time.
The important part about this is that it needs to be clear to NYU that your extracurriculars demonstrate real work put into them. This means the admissions officers should be able to look at your profile and determine that your activities were not faked.
So, leadership experiences need to be backed by actual activities and show real-world results.
Books you’ve written should be genuinely written by you, and not by AI tools like ChatGPT.
Projects you undertake should show the work you’ve done, and not just shortcuts such as purchasing the services of others to do the dirty work for you.
If you can have at least one extracurricular activity that demonstrates genuine and true work put into it, you’ll have a much better chance at getting accepted than just having a million other fake extracurriculars.
On that note, let’s discuss the effects the personal statement and extracurriculars have on the NYU Liberal Studies application process.
Extracurriculars and the Personal Statement in NYU’s Application Process.
NYU doesn’t put personal statement essays and extracurriculars at the top of importance.
But, they do put talent/ability in it.
This is important because you’ll notice that talent/ability is a non-quantifiable element.
Unlike many of the academic factors of the admissions process such as class rigor (# of APs), GPA, and test scores, non-quantifiable elements can’t be judged on a number. This is very important because they can only really be assessed based on extracurriculars and essay content.
The admissions office at NYU received 120,000 applicants for the class of 2027. It would be impossible to provide a fair, holistic admissions process to that number of applicants. Thus, the admissions officers logically MUST look at the non-quantifiable elements of the admissions process more in-depth.
This is where the essays come in.
The NYU essays are the best and only factor you can use as leverage to expand on your extracurriculars and other non-quantifiable factors. You have the freedom of writing an essay explaining your background for admissions officers to provide you a fair, holistic look at your admissions process.
If you have a strong NYU essay, you can demonstrate your talent/ability through your essays with solid writing, you can impress admissions officers in a factor that is as important as quantifiable factors like GPA and test scores.
Now, this can also go against you.
If you’re competing against other students who are also very strong with their writing skills, they may be able to out-write you and take a spot at NYU’s Liberal Studies program where you otherwise could have been.
If you feel your writing skills are not as strong as the competitive students applying for NYU’s Liberal Studies program, we heavily recommend speaking to our college admissions experts and essay editors for a free consultation. There, we can discuss how we can help you craft an NYU essay that stands out and beats the rest of the admissions pool.
Conclusion.
Okay. Here’s a brief summary of everything you need to know about NYU’s Liberal Studies acceptance rate and how to get accepted.
It’s not easy to get into NYU for Liberal Studies, and it’s safe to say their acceptance rate is in the single digits. To have a solid shot, aim for a 3.7 GPA or higher; but, don’t be discouraged from applying if it’s lower. You can use the common data set to determine what is important to NYU’s admissions process, and non-quantifiable factors like extracurriculars and personal statements are going to be more important than you think.
If you’re still not sure how to approach the NYU Liberal Studies admissions process, are unsure about your chances of acceptance, or would like help with essay writing or general admissions advising, don’t worry. Contact us for a free consultation, and our expert admissions experts will help guide you throughout the admisisons process from start to finish.