Key Facts

Public liberal arts mission, co-educational, non-religious.
Accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools.
Official designation as a Public Honors College, one of only two nationally.
One of the top 6 public liberal arts colleges in the nation (U.S. News & World Report).
Member of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC).

361-acre waterfront campus adjacent to historic St. Mary’s City, MD, founded in 1634. (Fourth oldest permanent English settlement in North America).
70 miles southeast of Washington, D.C. and 95 miles south of Baltimore near the confluence of the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay.

Total Enrollment, Fall 2017: 1,674 students.
90% of St. Mary’s students reside in Maryland. The remaining 10% hail from 23 states and 10 nations.

31 academic programs: 24 majors, 27 minors.
Degrees offered: Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Master of Arts in Teaching (M.A.T.).
Popular degree programs: Biology, Economics, English, Political Science, Psychology.
69% of St. Mary’s students major or minor in a second academic discipline.
145 full-time faculty.
10:1 student-to-faculty ratio, one of the lowest in the nation.
29 study abroad programs. 47% of the graduating class of 2016 studied abroad.
72% four-year graduation rate, highest of any public institution in Maryland.
Member of the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society.
Highest percentage of student-athletes on Capital Athletic Conference’s All-Academic team for 8 years in a row.
Faculty have been awarded 36 Fulbrights in the past 34 years. Alumni have been awarded 19 in the past 23 years.
Among the highest percentage of any Maryland school, 25% of all degrees earned are in STEM fields.
The biochemistry program received accreditation from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology through 2023. SMCM is the first public institution in Maryland to receive this accreditation.

82% of St. Mary’s students live on campus.
8 housing areas (coed and single sex halls, suites, apartments, and townhouses).
19 varsity athletic teams (NCAA Division III, ICSA, Mid-Adlantic Rowing Conference)
More than 100 student clubs and organizations.
Bill Ward, Director of Sailing, was named 2016 winner of the Sail1Design Coach of the year.
Public Safety Officer Lori Brasko was selected by the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA) to receive the 2016 IACLEA Award for Valor.

1840:	The school was founded when the Maryland legislature authorized a lottery to finance the construction of a “female seminary” (girls’ boarding school) in St. Mary’s City.
1846:	The school was incorporated by an act of legislation.
1927:	St. Mary’s became Maryland’s first junior college.
1964:	The school changed its name to St. Mary’s College of Maryland.
1967:	St. Mary’s became a four-year baccalaureate college.
1992:	The state General Assembly designated the school Maryland’s public honors college; the state also granted the College an institutional status designed to assure stable public funding.

Navy Blue and White