College profile
Pitzer College
CA · Private nonprofit · Large suburb · 3,464 applicants 2023
A parent's read
- The 5× payoff headline requires aid. Without aid this runs ~$86,466/yr. There's no income cutoff for need-based aid — whether you qualify depends on the gap between a school's price and your family's finances, so at a price like this even six-figure incomes often show need. Families who receive aid average ~$34,191/yr — against that, ten years of median earnings run ~5× the cost. Run the college's own net-price calculator before anchoring on the multiple.
- Ask the submit question deliberately. This college is test-optional — but at many such colleges, applicants who submit strong scores are admitted at meaningfully higher rates. “Optional” is a strategy decision, not a pass.
Composed from this page's data — every claim is backed by a number in the sections below.
Parent/student verdict
SelectiveSelective but achievable for strong students.
Best for
- Strong overall academic profile (avg admit unweighted GPA 3.99 per CDS — school is test-optional, so the transcript carries the most weight)
- Students drawn to Social Sciences or Natural Resources & Conservation (the two biggest majors)
- Families wanting a small liberal-arts experience
The reality
- You'd be near the bottom of their admitted class if: unweighted GPA below 3.79 (test bands are the school's own; the 3.79 line is our estimate, not a published figure)
- Test-optional — but selective. Transcript GPA, course rigor, and essays do the heavy lifting
- With selective universities, build a balanced college list of Reaches, Targets, and Safeties ⓘ
- High cost — full price is ~$86,466/yr without aid, and aid-receiving families still average ~$34,191/yr — verify the major's earnings track record before committing
Verdict is composed from this college's structured data (admit rate, SAT bands, net price with aid and at full price, Carnegie classification, scholarship grids) using transparent rule thresholds — not a chat-bot's opinion.
What are your child's odds here?
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Weighted is the higher GPA, with honors/AP credit in it — pick whichever your school reports. PSAT scores work in the SAT box.
Institutional snapshot
What kind of college is this?
Source: federal IPEDS Admissions 2023 for scores + admit rate; federal College Scorecard (20260606 vintage) for earnings + outcomes. SAT/ACT bands are the 25th–75th percentile of enrolled submitters.
High-school GPA
3.99 avg unweightedGPA on the plain 4.0 scale, no honors/AP bonus. When a college publishes an "average admitted GPA of 3.9," it's often this scale — don't compare it to a weighted 4.3. GPA, enrolled first-years
unweighted 4.0 scale. Common Data Set 2023-24 ↗
As published by the college in its Common Data Set / admissions data (2023-24) — independently verified 2026-07-23 (source linked above). GPA basis (weighted vs. unweighted vs. 4.0-scale) varies by college and is labeled above.
Outcomes & cost
What graduates actually earn, finish, and owe.
Federal College Scorecard data. Earnings are median annual income measured years after entering. Debt is for federal-aid borrowers only (cash-pay students aren't counted).
The real cost
What Pitzer College actually costs
Which side your family lands on isn't set by any national income line — it's set by Pitzer College's own aid decision: the gap between its price and your family's finances.
Your odds + estimated cost across your whole college list, side by side.
The payoffTen years of typical graduate pay minus four years of cost — how many dollars ahead a typical graduate runs by year ten. Check both the full-price and with-aid versions to see which applies to you; median pay reflects who a college admits and what they study as much as the college itself., both ways
+$349K ahead at full price +$558K with aidSource: College Scorecard (average net price among Title IV first-time, full-time undergraduates who received aid) and each college's published cost of attendance. We don't show the federal net-price-by-income brackets: their categories were fixed in 2008 and never adjusted, and none of the averages is your family's own number — the full story. Payoff = (10-yr median earnings × 10) − (4 years of cost), in dollars — how far ahead a typical graduate runs by year ten; medians travel with the students a college admits and the majors they choose as much as with the college itself. Full price is the published cost of attendance; earnings are 10 years after enrollment, all majors combined.
What students study here
Most popular majors at Pitzer College
Top 5 fields of study by bachelor's degrees awarded (most recent IPEDS Completions). Use this to see what Pitzer College actually graduates — not just what it markets.
What those majors earn here
Median earnings 4 years after entry, by major — Pitzer College's own graduates, not national averages.
| Major (CIP) | 4-yr earnings |
|---|---|
| Human Resources Management and Services. | $89,636 |
| Political Science and Government. | $68,831 |
Sources: IPEDS Completions (C2023_a; bachelor's-level first majors, 2-digit CIP family — share is of the top 5 only) · College Scorecard program-level outcomes (PP-FOS). Full college-vs-major comparison: /college-outcomes →
Student body & economic mobility
Who attends here — and what the campus adds.
Opportunity Insights data. It measures two things at once: how many lower-income students a college enrols, and how many of them reach the top earnings quintile later. A high rate says the college does both — it does not establish that the campus caused the earnings, because the students it admits differ from the students it doesn't. Read it as a signal about access and destination, not as proof of value added.
Full leaderboards: /college-mobility →
AI program signal
AI + computing education at Pitzer College
Full multi-lens comparison: /ai-colleges →
Alternatives to Pitzer College
Matched not just by selectivity, but by strategic goal — what a family actually decides on.
Or compare any college side-by-side
Deciding on Pitzer College?
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Get your child's odds at Pitzer College →Score-odds calculator · Improve the score first · Find merit aid
Feeder high schools
Which high schools send graduates to Pitzer College?
Enrolled — from the schools' matriculation lists
64 high schools publish a numbered matriculation list — where their graduates actually enrolled, counted, in the school's own School Profile — and name Pitzer College on it. Between them they printed 196 enrolled graduates. Ranked by graduates per class year enrolling at Pitzer College, from each school's own published list: the number that school printed, divided by the class years its list covers. The published total and the school's own years label are shown beside every school, so a one-year list and a five-year list can sit on the same page. A list whose class years we cannot read is not divided by a guess — it is listed below with its total instead.
and 54 more
Admitted — from the schools' acceptance lists
4 high schools publish a numbered list of college acceptances — where their graduates were admitted, not where they enrolled — and name Pitzer College on it. Between them they printed 8 admissions. Ranked by admissions per class year to Pitzer College, from each school's own published acceptances list: the number that school printed, divided by the class years its list covers. Admits are counted at each college a student was admitted to, the same way the UC Reach Score counts a student admitted to three UC campuses three times — so this is a count of admissions, not of students. The published total and the school's own years label are shown beside every school, and a list whose class years we cannot read is listed below with its total rather than divided by a guess.
All 67 feeder schools, ranked →
Counted from each school's own published document, linked on that school's page. A high school that is not here does not publish a numbered list we could read — that is all absence means, and it says nothing about its graduates. Where a school publishes both, the two lists are shown separately: an acceptances list is not a list of enrollments, and the two are never added together.
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At a glance
JSON · Using this page with an AI assistantPitzer College is a private nonprofit four-year college in CA. It admitted 17% of applicants (3,464 applied, 2023). Test policy: Test-optional.
Average enrolled GPA 3.99 (unweighted, 2023-24, as published by the college).
Cost: about $34,191 a year on average with aid, $86,466 a year at full price.
Median earnings ten years after entry: $69,512 a year. Payoff, meaning ten years of that pay minus four years of cost: $558,356 ahead with aid, $349,256 ahead at full price.
Highest median earnings four years after the degree, by program: Human Resources Management and Services ($89,636); Political Science and Government ($68,831).
Economic mobility (Opportunity Insights): 6% of students came from families in the bottom fifth of income, and 35% of those reached the top fifth as adults.
High schools that publish a numbered matriculation list and name Pitzer College: 64, 196 enrolled students between them — ranked by graduates per class year, most often Harker School (2.3 per class year, 7 over 3 class years, Classes of 2023, 2024 & 2025); The Northwest School (2.2 per class year, 11 over 5 class years, classes of 2021-2025); Northfield Mount Hermon (2.0 per class year, 8 over 4 class years, the past four years). Each figure is the number that school printed divided by the class years its own list covers; the totals and years are shown. These are the schools that publish such a list, not every school that sends students; full list: https://highschoolreach.com/leaderboards/feeder-schools/pitzer-college.
High schools that publish a numbered list of college acceptances naming Pitzer College: 4, 8 admissions between them — ranked by admissions per class year, most often Archbishop Mitty High School (3.0 per class year, 3 over 1 class year, Class of 2025); Laguna Blanca School (0.4 per class year, 2 over 5 class years, Classes of 2022-2026); The Chapin School (0.4 per class year, 2 over 5 class years, 2022-2026, counted column "Admitted"). Admits are counted at each college, so this counts admissions, not students. These are a different set of documents from the matriculation lists above and the two are never added together; full list: https://highschoolreach.com/leaderboards/feeder-schools/pitzer-college.
Machine-readable version of this page: https://highschoolreach.com/colleges/pitzer-college.json