Applying to Hamline: Frequently Asked Questions

Have a question not answered on this page? Email the Office of Undergraduate Admission at admission@hamline.edu or call 800-753-9753 or 651-523-2207. 

Admission | Financial Aid | Academics | Career Development 

Location and Visiting | Dining | Residential Life | Safety and Security 

International Students 

Admission   

Q. Does Hamline have an application fee?

A. Hamline does not have an application fee.

Q. If I am admitted, does Hamline require a deposit fee to save a place in the class?

A. Yes. Admitted students may submit a $100 comprehensive deposit (or $150 comprehensive/housing deposit) by May 1 for fall enrollment or December 1 for spring enrollment in order to receive priority in housing placement and course registration. All fall deposits are refundable until May 1.

Q. What admission plans does Hamline offer?

A. Hamline offers two first year admission plans: 

Hamline accepts transfer student applications for both semesters with the following deadlines: 

1. Fall: August 1 
2. Spring: January 15
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Q. What do you consider in the admission review process?

A. First year students:

We look carefully at your high school transcript (grades 9-12), course selection, grades, weighted/unweighted, cumulative GPA, weighted/unweighted class rank (if available), ACT or SAT scores, personal statement, activity list and letters of recommendation. Your senior year courses and performance are important.

Transfer students:

Hamline considers the completed online application, personal statement, and all college transcripts. Letters of recommendation are strongly encouraged. Transfer students must have completed either a high school diploma or equivilant and have enrolled in a post secondary institution.

Q. What scholarships are available for first year students?

A. Hamline offers scholarships for first year, transfer, and international students. Most are awarded by the admission office. Students are automatically considered for these scholarships when they apply to Hamline. Hamline also keeps a list of outside scholarships that students are encouraged to apply for.

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Financial Aid

Q. How do I determine if I will receive financial aid?  

A. Go online and visit www.finaid.org/calculators/. This webpage provides many useful calculations, including an estimate of your expected family contribution (EFC). If your EFC is less than our costs, you will be eligible for need-based financial assistance at Hamline University. If your EFC is higher than our costs, you will still be eligible for job and loan opportunities.

Q. How do I apply for financial aid?

A. Visit the Financial Aid site to learn how to apply for financial aid.

Q. What is Hamline’s financial aid deadline?

A. Hamline’s priority deadline for filing the FAFSA is March 1 for the fall semester. If you are applying for the spring semester, the FAFSA priority deadline is December 1.

Q. What is Hamline’s federal school code?

A. Hamline’s federal school code is 002354.

Q. How much does Hamline cost?

A. Hamline's cost and fees for the 2009-2010 shool year are:

 

Q. How do I pay for Hamline?

A. Hamline University is sensitive to the financial concerns of its students and their families. We know that a quality education is a significant investment -- it is our objective to be your partner in this venture. To assist you, we have established these payment plans: 

• Prepayment Discount Plan: One prepayment is made for the entire coming year’s tuition, fees, room, and board, less any financial aid award. A 3% discount is applied to your net cost when full payment is received by June 15. Contact the student accounts office by June 1 to have your 3% discount calculated. 
• Installment Plan: Ten monthly payments are made over the academic year. Payments are due the first of the month beginning August 1 and ending May 1. The cost for the Installment Plan is $50 for the year or $35 per semester. 
• Semester Plan: Two payments are made in the academic year: fall semester charges are due and payable on August 15, and spring semester charges are due and payable on January 15. You will be assigned this payment plan unless you complete an application for either the Prepayment Discount Plan or the Installment Plan.

Q. Where can I find information about work study, grants, scholarships, and loans?

A. The Financial Aid Office has information about work study, grants, scholarships, loans, and the financial aid process.

Q. Where can I find financial aid forms?

A. General financial aid forms
    Financial Aid site 

Q. Where can I find answers to my questions regarding student accounts and billing?

A. Student accounts and billing frequently asked questions 

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Academics

Q. What academic programs are offered at Hamline? 

A. Hamline offers bachelor's degrees in over 40 different academic areas. A full list of available majors and departments can be found on the undergraduate programs page.

Q. Where can I view courses currently being offered at Hamline?

A. The Hamline University class schedule is posted online and shows what courses are being offered for the current semester.

Q. What kind of academic calendar does Hamline have?

A. Hamline follows a 4:1:4 academic calendar. During each of the 14 week fall and spring terms, students have a normal schedule of four courses. One course may be taken during the optional four week January term. Fractional courses may be added to the normal load.

Q. What academic assistance programs are available at Hamline?

A. The Center for Academic Services offers academic skills assistance, academic advising, and tutors. Hamline also has a Writing Center and a Disabilities Services office.

Q. Is Hamline’s course bulletin available online?

A. You may view the current Bulletin online.

Q. What is the first year seminar program?

A. Each entering first year student must register for a first year seminar. The seminar provides students with an introduction to college and a sense of community by placing them in small classes of 16-18 students that are for first-year students only. Each seminar, while focusing on a topic unique to that seminar, concentrates on developing the skills of careful reading, critical thinking, group discussion, and writing that are basic to college level study, regardless of one's area of interest.

Q. What is the summer reading program?

A. Hamline's summer reading program prepares students to join the Hamline community. Each year, Hamline faculty select an engaging book to be read by incoming students over the summer. New students are required to have read and thought about the book before New Student Orientation.

Q. Where can I find a copy of the academic advising worksheet?

A. Academic advising worksheet

Q. What is the typical class size at Hamline, and does Hamline use teaching assistants?

A. The median class size at Hamline is 18 students. The student-to-faculty ratio is 14:1, and all classes are taught by experienced faculty, never by teaching assistants.

Q. What study abroad options are available?

A. Hamline sends approximately 200 students abroad each year on semester-long, one-month, and occasional yearlong study abroad programs. Visit the Study Abroad office for more information.

Q. What is the ACTC Program?

A. ACTC stands for the Associated Colleges of the Twin Cities. The ACTC combines the community atmosphere of a small liberal arts college with the diversity of opportunities of a large university. Students enrolled at any of the participating institutions are able to take courses at the other schools.

Q. Does Hamline have an honor code?

A. Hamline does have an honor code. Every member of the Hamline University community -- students, faculty, administrators, and staff -- is responsible for upholding the highest standards of academic integrity at all times. The assumption that academic work is an honest reflection of one’s knowledge and skills is fundamental to the integrity of the university and the value of a Hamline diploma.

Q. How do AP, IB, PSEO and College in the Schools coursework transfer to Hamline?

A. Visit our transfer credits page for information on transferring AP, IB, and PSEO credits to Hamline.

Q. How are college credits transfered to Hamline?

A. In you have attended a Minnesota community college, consult the Hamline transfer guide. Most courses at Minnesota community colleges have been evaluted to determine if they are transferable to Hamline and how they fit into the Hamline Plan and our majors and programs.

You may also contact the transfer counselor at Hamline for advice regarding transferable courses already completed and courses you are planning to complete prior to transferring to Hamline.

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Career Development

Q. Will Hamline help me figure out my career path?

A. Hamline’s Career Development Center offers a wealth of resources to assist you in determining your career path.The CDC provides career classes and seminars, or individual career counseling, practice interviews, and job shadowing opportunities.

Q. Can the Career Development Center help me if I am thinking of going to graduate school?

A. Yes, the Career Development Center staff is happy to work with students in finding the right graduate program for them as well as helps in understanding the admission process.

Q. Are internships available to Hamline students?

A. Internships offer you an incredible experience, enhance your professional skills, and provide contacts for future jobs. The Career Development Center staff encourage all students to complete at least two internships—one early in your college career and another in your junior or senior year. As a Hamline graduate, you’ll enter the marketplace or graduate school prepared to succeed.

Q. What are some of your recent graduates doing now?

A. Hamline graduates are sought-after candidates for employment. See a sampling of where recent Hamline alumni are employed or are going to graduate school at our Life After Hamline page.

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Location & Visiting

Q. Where is Hamline located?

A. The Hamline campus is located in a quiet, residential area midway between the downtowns of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. The Twin Cities area was ranked by Money magazine as the best large Midwestern city in which to live and has been named one of the safest cities in the United States.

Learn more about the Hamline campus and community

Q. Do you have a virtual tour of campus?

A. Hamline currently has a photo slideshow of campus on the admission website.

Q. How can I set up a visit to campus?

A. Go to the Hamline Experience page and fill out a campus visit form. There is also information about various Admission events that are held throughout the year for prospective students. If you're interested in group visits or if you have further questions about visiting, don't hesitate to call the our office at 651-523-2207 or 800-753-9753.

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Residential Life

Q. Am I required to live on-campus?

A. While it is not required that students live on campus, nearly 90% of first-year students choose to live on-campus.

Q. Why should I live on-campus?

A. Students who choose to live in residence halls tend to get better grades and feel more connected to campus than students who live off-campus. The convenience of stopping in your room between classes combined with the freedom from hassles of commuting, separate utility bills, and hunting for an apartment all create more time for academics and college fun.

With a campus community as active as ours, there’s always something going on. No matter what time of the day or night, residence hall students find it easy to: 

• connect with classmates for a late-night study session; 
• take in a movie or a concert at the student center; 
• get active in any of Hamline’s diverse student groups; 
• grab a snack at the HUB or the Klas Center; and 
• cheer on the Piper athletic teams. 
• create meaningful friendships with other Hamline students 

Q. Does Hamline have first-year-specific or theme housing?

A. Hamline offers First Year Experience floors (FYE) in areas where first year students live. This program is designed to connect students to one another as well as with the university.

The theme housing program is a way for returning and new students to live, study, interact with, and support other students with similar interests. There are several theme housing communities throughout campus.

Q. What will I find in my dorm room when I move in?

A. Your residence hall room will be furnished with a bed, dresser, chair, closet and desk. The beds are all extra long twin (36”x80”). Most rooms are carpeted (all of Sorin and the Heights).

Go to the Residential Halls page to see more information about Hamline residence halls, including hall and room features and photos.

Q. What items am I not allowed to have in my residence hall room?

A. The list of equipment not allowed in the residence halls includes, but is not limited to, air conditioners, halogen lamps, water beds, charcoal and gas grills, hot plates, extension cords, motorbikes, motorcycles, candles, incense, toasters, George-Foreman style grills, and microwave ovens which are not the Microfridge unit.

Q. How are roommates assigned?

A. Each incoming student fills out a detailed housing card/survey regarding personality, interests, study habits, and cleanliness to name a few. This allows students to state what qualities are important in their prospective roommates.

In early June (for fall students), residential life and admissions staff go through your housing preference cards and make assignments based on the date of application and your requests for a roommate. For those students starting in the spring, assignments are made in January.

Students can mutually request roommates. Each roommate needs to make this request to ensure that they will be matched together.

Q. How many roommates will I have?

A. Rooms in the residence halls are arranged to have two, three, or four people in specific rooms. Based on the room occupancy and your assignment, you could have as many as 3 additional roommates.

Q. When will I find out who my roommate(s) is (/are)?

A. Usually, roommate assignment letters are mailed to you by late June for fall students and January for spring students. You will receive the name of your roommate(s) and their address(es) and phone number(s).

Q. What do I do if my roommate and I don’t get along?

A. Within the first two weeks of the fall semester, students will create a roommate contract. By working with your RA and CA, you will talk with your roommate about your needs in the room, as well as listen to the needs of your roommate. Then together you will complete a roommate contract. This is an important process because many of our students have not shared a room before and don’t always know how to talk about their needs. If problems arise, the RA will meet with the roommates and talk through their contract. Changes might need to be made. If the situation can’t be resolved in any other way, then students are allowed to change rooms.

Q. What is an RA and CA?

A. An RA (Resident Advisor) is the student staff member responsible for your community. They guide the activities of the floor as a advisor to the community. They are responsible for programming, on-call duty for their area, peer counseling, community agreements, and policy enforcement. The CAs (Community Advisor) are responsible for creating community on the floor through programming and events on the floor to connect students to each other and the Hamline community.

Q. Am I allowed to have a friend visit me and spend the night?

A. Guests are allowed to visit students on campus as long as the roommate agrees to the visit. Guests should only stay a maximum of 3 consecutive nights.

Q. Are single rooms available?

A. At Hamline University, 6% (or approximately 47 rooms each year) of the residence hall rooms are singles. All of these are reserved in the seniority-based room selection process each year, generally by returning seniors and juniors. First year students have no opportunity to live in a single room, unless they have a severe medical or emotional need which is documented by a doctor and which requires them to live in a single room.

Q. What is the university’s alcohol policy?

A. Hamline University's alcohol policy establishes an atmosphere of accountability and places upon those who use alcohol the responsibility to do so in an orderly manner consistent with both state and local laws. View the complete policy.

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Dining Services

Q. What meal plans are available?

A. Hamline offers many meal plan options for both residential students and commuters. For residential students there are three weekly plans and two block plans. The weekly plans are the 19, 14, and 10. With these plans you get a set number of meals per week, and then each time you enter Sorin Dining Hall and have your Hamline ID scanned, a meal is deducted from your dining account. The Sorin cashier can tell the students at any time how many meals they have left. When choosing a weekly meal plan, it is very important to remember that meals not eaten during the course of the week do not carry over into the next week. An advantage to the weekly plans are that you would always know how many meals you have for the entire semester. The most popular weekly plan is the 14, which works well for those students who are not on campus on weekends, have off-campus employment, or who choose to sleep in and miss breakfast! For counting purposes, the dining week runs from Monday breakfast through Sunday dinner.

The two residential block meal plans offered are the 225 Block and the 150 Block. With these plans the number of meals is based per semester and not by the week, which allows more flexibility for students who aren’t sure how many meals they may eat each week. However, a student would want to budget their meals so that they do not run out of meals before the end of the semester. Based on a 15-week semester, a student on the 225 plan gets 15 meals per week to eat, and a student on the 150 plan gets 10. An advantage to the block plans is that a student can eat 12 meals one week and then five meals the next without losing any meals.

All meal plans listed above also include declining balance dollars. The amount of declining balance depends on what meal plan you sign up for.

For commuters, Hamline offers three options – the Five Meal Plan, the 100 Block Plan, or Straight Declining Balance. The Five Meal Plan is a weekly plan and the 100 Block Plan is 100 meals over the course of the school year. The Declining Balance Plan is an option where students can just put money on their dining account. There is a $50 minimum to open a straight declining balance account.

Q. What is "declining balance" and where can I use it?

A. Declining balance dollars work on the same principle as bank debit cards. Each time you make a food or meal purchase, the total coast of your meal is subtracted from the dollar balance in your account. Declining balance may be used at any dining location. Additional declining balance dollars may be added to any meal plan.

Q. What hours are the eating facilities open?

A. View the hours that each eating facility is open (Soring Dining Hall, HUB Snack Bar, Klas Cafe) on Campus Dish.

Q. What vegetarian options are available?

A. Sorin Hall offers the most variety for vegetarians and vegans. There are eight different food stations at Sorin – Home, Grille, Sandwich Shoppe, Pizza and Pasta, Exhibition, Soup and Breads, Produce Market, and Stir-Fry. Each station offers options such as Grilled Vegetable and Hummus Sandwiches, Tomato Basil Pizzas, California Wraps, GardenBurgers, and Morningstar Farms Sausage. The Sandwich Shoppe also offers vegetarian cheeses, bologna, and Nayonnaise. Recipes from home are always welcomed!

Q. How do I change my meal plan?

A. During the first two weeks of each semester, a student can change their meal plan by going to the dining service in Sorin to get the “Change Meal Plan’ card. The card can be picked-up from the main dining service office or at the Service Center, which is located across from the dining hall entrance. The Service Center is open Monday through Friday during lunch, and Monday through Thursday during dinner. The dining service staff can help answer questions about the meal plans and refunds.

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Safety & Security

Q. What services does the Safety and Security Office at Hamline provide?

A. The Safety and Security Office ensures that all members of the Hamline Community may pursue their occupation and/or education without fear for their mental, emotional, and/or physical well being.

Q. What should I do if I feel unsafe on campus?

A. The Safety and Security office provides escorts twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, on foot, by cart, or by car from anywhere on campus to within one mile or from within one mile to anywhere on campus. Emergency phones are located at the main entries of each residence hall. In addition, emergency call boxes are also installed throughout campus.

Q. What should I do in the case of an emergency?

A. Students, faculty, staff, and guests of Hamline are encouraged to immediately report emergencies and criminal activities to the Safety and Security Office. In the case of a life-threatening emergency, dial 9-911 immediately for ambulance, police, or fire department response, then notify the Office of Safety and Security.

Q. How safe are the dorms?

A. Living areas of all residence halls and the apartment building are locked twenty-four hours a day, and all entrances are monitored by security cameras. In addition, a Residential Life staff member is on-duty from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Hamline staff also perform health and safety inspections at least once a year.

Q. What is Hamline’s drug and alcohol policy?

A. Any employee or student possessing, using, or distributing illegal drugs is subject to disciplinary action. Alcoholic beverages are not allowed in any public areas of the campus including residence halls, houses, and apartment public areas. Students twenty-one years of age and older may use alcohol in the privacy of their room. According to Safety and Security’s crime statistic reports, both liquor and drug law violations have decreased since 2002.

Q. Can I view the Safety & Security Annual Report?

A. View the annual report listing Safety & Security Policies & Statistics.

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International Students

Q. Does Hamline have an international student application fee?

A. Yes, the fee is $40 USD.

Q. Do you require a recommendation letter from a teacher?

A. Yes. At least one recommendation letter from a teacher or counselor is required.

Q. What is the application deadline for international students?

A. If you plan to start classes at Hamline in early September (fall semester), you must apply prior to May 1. If you plan to start classes in early February (spring semester), you must apply prior to November 1.

Q. Do I need to submit TOEFL or IELTS scores if English is my first language?

A. No. Students whose first language is English need only submit results of the SAT or ACT.

Q. If I am admitted, do you require a deposit fee to save a place in the class?

A. Yes. Admitted students may submit a $150 USD deposit for students planning to live in a Hamline residence hall (or a $100 USD deposit for students planning to live off-campus).

Q. When will I receive an I-20 so I may apply for a student visa at the U.S. Embassy?

A. After your application has been reviewed by the admission committee, you are admitted to Hamline University, and you have demonstrated evidence of financial support, we will send you the I-20 form with your official letter of admission. You will use these documents to apply for a student visa. You should plan early and carefully so you may schedule an appointment at the nearest U.S. Embassy. Be prepared to submit all additional documentation the U.S. Embassy official may require of you, such as a valid passport and financial information.

Q. What is the SEVIS fee?

A. The United States Department of Homeland Security's Federal SEVIS fee is a one-time payment required of students planning to study in the U.S. on an F-1 visa. You will be required to show proof that you have paid the SEVIS fee at your visa interview. The SEVIS fee is separarte from the visa application. If you enroll and matriculate at Hamline, the SEVIS fee amount will be credited to your account. Learn more about SEVIS at www.fmjfee.com.

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