College of Charleston
70%
Acceptance rate
$38,844
Tuition/yr
10,600
Enrollment
14.5:1
Student:Faculty
About College of Charleston
Public liberal arts college in Charleston, SC. Strong business, engineering, and education programs with historic campus.
College of Charleston is a public liberal arts and sciences university founded in 1770, making it the oldest educational institution south of Virginia and the 13th oldest in the United States. Located in Charleston, South Carolina, it enrolls approximately 12,000 students across 69 undergraduate majors, 20 master's programs, and 3 doctoral programs.
The college is recognized by U.S. News and World Report as a top-10 Regional University in the South and ranks among the top four public schools in that category. Academic strengths include business, computer science, teacher education, and the sciences, and the college holds the No. 1 spot among public master's-level universities for career center performance according to The Princeton Review. It is also consistently ranked among the top institutions nationally for study-abroad participation.
The campus occupies a historic district in downtown Charleston, a coastal city known for its architecture, cultural institutions, and connections to industries including hospitality, finance, technology, and life sciences. Students have direct access to internship and research opportunities tied to the city and surrounding coastal environment.
World University Rankings
Campus & Location
SC
Suburban
Optional Practical Training (OPT)
All graduates qualify for 12-month OPT. STEM-designated programs (CS, Engineering, Data Science, Mathematics, Sciences) qualify for 24-month STEM OPT extension — 36 months total work authorisation.
For Nepali students
- The International Ambassador Scholarship automatically awards $10,000 per year to admitted F-1 visa holders with no separate application required, meaningfully reducing the approximately $38,844 annual non-resident tuition cost. Additional departmental and Honors College scholarships are open to international students.
- International graduates on an F-1 visa are eligible for 12 months of Optional Practical Training (OPT) after completing their degree, with STEM graduates eligible for a 24-month OPT extension, giving Nepali graduates up to 3 years of US work authorization in qualifying fields such as computer science or data science.
- The college's 14.5:1 student-faculty ratio and emphasis on faculty-mentored research means Nepali students can expect more direct academic engagement than at large research universities, which is particularly valuable when building a US academic or professional network from scratch.
- With students from 72 countries, the campus has an internationally diverse student body, and Charleston's growing tech and business sectors offer strong internship pipelines relevant to the business and computer science programs that many Nepali students pursue.
Admission requirements — Nepali equivalents
A rough translation of the published minimums for Nepali applicants:
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