Principia College

Admission to Principia College has become moderately selective, admitting less than half of applicants in recent years. In 2024, the college accepted 42.7% of male applicants and 47.1% of female applicants, while total new enrollment stood at 84 students. In the US News National Liberal Arts Colleges ranking, the institution was placed at 74th for 2027. This standing represents an overall improvement compared to 2020, when the college ranked 100th, although it sits below its peak placement of 51st achieved in 2023 and 2024. The combination of acceptance rates in the forty-percent range and a small entering cohort reflects an admissions environment where admission is competitive, though a meaningful portion of applicants still receive an offer. Prospective students evaluating the college should note both its selective admissions profile and its position within the top one hundred national liberal arts institutions.

Standardized testing outcomes from 2024 outline the academic profile of admitted undergraduates at Principia College. For enrolled students in 2024, the middle range for SAT Reading spanned from 510 to 640, while ACT composite scores ranged from 19 to 23. SAT Math results fell into a similar band, and 38% of entering students submitted SAT scores that year. These score distributions indicate a relatively accessible admissions standard where applicants do not require top-tier standardized results to remain viable contenders. Prospective students aiming for admission generally benefit from maintaining steady secondary school grades alongside standardized testing that meets or exceeds these mid-range benchmarks. For families and applicants evaluating academic fit, these institutional thresholds provide a practical reference point for academic preparation rather than an exclusionary barrier, showing that the college admits students across a broad academic spectrum.

Principia College operates as a dedicated undergraduate institution with a very small graduating class, where degree conferrals are moderately concentrated across several practical and scientific disciplines. In 2025, the college awarded 76 bachelor's degrees in total, with the top three majors accounting for 32.9% of all graduates. The largest programs were Education, General and Environmental Biology, each conferring 9 degrees, followed by Mass Communication/Media Studies and Business Administration and Management, General. None of the college's programs appear on national major ranking lists, indicating that program selection is driven by institutional offerings rather than published specialty standing. International students are represented differently depending on the field, reaching 42.9% of graduates in both Mass Communication/Media Studies and Business Administration and Management, General, while making up a smaller portion of science and education cohorts. For prospective students, the small overall size means that even the college's most popular majors produce only a handful of graduates each year.

Principia College maintains a very small undergraduate community, enrolling a total of 339 students in 2025. Returning students form the majority of the campus population, supplemented by smaller incoming first-year and transfer groups. International students represent a substantial presence across the student body, making up 49% of the returning undergraduate cohort. Domestic enrollment includes White students as the largest domestic group, along with smaller representations of Black, Hispanic, and Pacific Islander students. By contrast, Asian student enrollment is exceptionally small; the college enrolled 3 Asian students among returning undergraduates, accounting for 1.2% of that group, with none recorded in the first-year or transfer cohorts. For prospective applicants, this demographic distribution highlights a campus where international enrollment is prominent within a compact collegiate environment, while domestic Asian representation remains very limited.

Principia College features an undergraduate population concentrated entirely within traditional college ages. In 2025, the college enrolled 338 undergraduates, and those aged twenty to twenty-one formed the single largest cohort at 136 students, accounting for 40.2% of total enrollment. The remainder of the student body is composed mostly of younger students aged eighteen to nineteen alongside a smaller group aged twenty-two to twenty-four, with older non-traditional students virtually absent. Because the institution enrolls zero graduate students, campus routines and student activities center entirely on young adults progressing through their baccalaureate studies.

International enrollment constitutes an exceptionally prominent facet of the student community at Principia College. In 2025, international students accounted for 41% of total undergraduates, a proportion higher than all peer schools in a comparison group of 30 closely ranked private liberal arts colleges. This figure reflects an upward trajectory over the past decade, climbing from 20.2% in 2016. Because the college offers no graduate programs, international enrollment is situated entirely at the undergraduate level. Among degree recipients in 2025, international students earned 27.6% of all bachelor's degrees conferred. These graduates concentrated heavily in commercial and communications fields: international students comprised 42.9% of degree recipients in both Mass Communication/Media Studies and Business Administration and Management, General, while representing smaller proportions in education and natural sciences. For international applicants, these patterns demonstrate an institution with an unusually high non-domestic presence where international students form a core component of the campus community.

Applicants exploring college choices in the broader region around Elsah, Illinois, can evaluate several nearby universities offering alternative campus settings and academic scales. Located just 16.6 kilometers away, University of Missouri-St Louis is a public institution holding the 276th position among national universities in the 2027 rankings. Across the Mississippi River at a distance of 20.9 kilometers sits Washington University in St Louis, a private national research university ranked 16th. A short distance further, Saint Louis University is situated 22.4 kilometers from campus, ranked 100th among national universities in 2027. These options provide families with accessible points of comparison in an urban setting close to Principia's rural location.

Campus safety indicators at Principia College show very low overall rates of reported incidents. The college recorded a crime rate per 1,000 students of 1.8 in 2025, up from 0 in 2023. Over the three-year span from 2023 to 2025, the primary recorded disciplinary category consisted of disciplinary referrals for liquor law violations, which totaled 3 incidents across those years. No other categories surpassed that volume during the period. Families evaluating campus environment indicators can observe that formal disciplinary referrals and reported safety incidents remain minimal across the student body.