--- title: Rape Common Among Female College Freshmen, Study Shows description: A new study of first-year women at a large private U.S. university reveals that many freshmen women have suffered some form of rape canonical: https://time.com/3891039/college-campus-rape-freshmen/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-20T18:50:14.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:59:13.021Z article:section: Health og:title: Rape Is Common Among Female College Freshmen, Study Shows og:description: Sexual assaults and rape have reached "epidemic levels," researchers say. og:url: https://time.com/3891039/college-campus-rape-freshmen/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte8328b68e9673ab7/698696e513c79f36a7192931/sexual-assault-college.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5616 og:image:height: 3159 og:image:alt: Demonstrators protest sexual assault on college campuses at the #YesAllWomen rally in solidarity with those affected by violence in Seattle on May 30, 2014. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Rape Is Common Among Female College Freshmen, Study Shows twitter:description: Sexual assaults and rape have reached "epidemic levels," researchers say. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte8328b68e9673ab7/698696e513c79f36a7192931/sexual-assault-college.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Rape Is Common Among Female College Freshmen, Study Shows > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=e3898539-27d1-4728-9459-348eec60ce81&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: My Rapist Is Still on Campus: Sexual Assault in the Ivy League [Watch (HLS stream): My Rapist Is Still on Campus: Sexual Assault in the Ivy League](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/o8izpqKu.m3u8) (6:50)  _Published 2014-05-14. In April, 23 Columbia and Barnard students filed a federal Title IX complaint alleging that the University mishandled sexual assault cases_ by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin May 20, 2015 6:50 PM UTC  Demonstrators protest sexual assault on college campuses at the #YesAllWomen rally in solidarity with those affected by violence in Seattle on May 30, 2014. Demonstrators protest sexual assault on college campuses at the #YesAllWomen rally in solidarity with those affected by violence in Seattle on May 30, 2014. Alex Garland—Demotix/Corbis by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin May 20, 2015 6:50 PM UTC A new study of first-year women at a large private university in the Northeastern U.S. reveals that many freshman women have suffered some form of rape. The study looked at 483 women (a relatively small study size) who were a representative sample of the freshman class and who volunteered to partake in the study. The women filled out questionnaires when they arrived on campus, at the end of their fall semester, at the end of their spring semester and at the end of the summer following their first year at college. The study was published Wednesday in the _Journal of Adolescent Health._ Before entering college, about 18% of the women reported enduring a completed or attempted incapacitated rape (involving drugs or alcohol) since age 14, and 15% reported being victims of completed or attempted forcible rape. Over the study year, the researchers found that 9% of the women reported experiencing attempted or completed forcible rape and 15.4% reported attempted or completed incapacitated rape. Some of the women in the study reported more than one incident. At the end of the study, the lifetime experience of forcible rape was 21.7% among the women in the study, and 25.7% for incapacitated rape. In general, rape involving drugs and alcohol was most common among the women in the study. The data also suggests that women who had already undergone a rape before entering college were more likely to report experiencing rape during their first year. “These findings are important not only for sexual assault prevention but for mental health promotion on campus as previous work has illustrated that multiple exposures to violence are strongly associated with poor mental health, including suicidality,” a corresponding editorial on the study reads. The study authors add that risky drinking behavior should be a target for prevention. The researchers conclude that incapacitated and forcible sexual assaults and rape have reached “epidemic levels” among college women. The findings are among a small population of women, but underline that rape is not an altogether uncommon experience among young women. While it should be noted that the study looks at self-reported rapes and not clinically validated assaults, it’s also important to note that [Department of Justice data](http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsavcaf9513.pdf) suggests up to 80% of rapes and sexual assaults of female college students go unreported. The study replicates findings in a number of other studies, which tend to find that close to 1 in 5 women in college are sexual-assault victims. But over the past year, there’s been a great deal of controversy about using the results from one study as a stand-in for a national average of college rape victims. This has been particularly true of the 1-in-5 number often cited by the White House, which comes from the 2007 [Campus Sexual Assault Study](https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/221153.pdf) of two different colleges. This new study was much, much smaller — its value should be taken as one data point to build a broad picture of sexual assault on America’s campuses. “These data make clear that prevention programs for both men and women in both high school and college are necessary,” the study authors write. “Programs may need to address trauma-related concerns for previously victimized women.” ## Transcript My name is Emma [ UNKNOWN ]. I am a junior at Columbia college. I am a visual arts major. On the first day of my sophomore year, I was raped by a fellow classmate. I didn't report at first because. It's a big emotional trauma, and I didn't feel like dealing with it at first, until I met at that time, two other women who told me the same person who had assaulted me, had assaulted them. The school found a way to dismiss each of our three cases separately. [ MUSIC ] My rapist, it still goes to my school, and still is on campus. [ MUSIC ]. This is not a single campus issue. This is not an individual issue. This is a cultural problem. We have a huge issue with rape culture on all college campuses. There was a study that was done that shows that men on college campuses who are perpetrators. Are more often than not repeat offenders. The average number of people a perpetrator will sexually assault is six, according to this study. So this isn't a random phenomenon. This isn't this happens in an alley, this happens when everyone's incredibly drunk at a party. There is a certain profile for what sexual assault looks like on a college campus. And that is why we need administrators to be open, and transparent, about that. Right now, their approach seems to be to ignore the problem, to try to deny students access to resources, to deny that that's happening at all when it fact they really should be getting in front of the issue. Our hearing took place seven months after I reported the incident. The investigator in my case didn't take down many important things such as the position I was in when he raped me. My hearing panelists weren't even trained, one woman kept asking me how it was physically possible for anal rape to happen. Why Columbia didn't find him responsible? I don't actually get to write a statement of what happened. It's all the investigator's statement that they read. There's an office called the Office of Gender Based and Sexual Misconduct. You go in there and at that time a woman was working there so I told her what had happened. She was the one who took erroneous notes, and missed really important that I said. Since her statement didn't make any sense, my case didn't make any sense. I think another reason that the school didn't find him guilty was that they, they really didn't want to treat it as a serial rape case because we, all three of us reported, and then they would say you are not allowed to mention each others' cases, we are going to treat them separately. I think that. If the hearing panel have had known that this was a serial offender, they might have believed us more maybe? They also said that there was not enough evidence to determine that it was more likely than not. That the respondent engaged in behavior that met the de, definition of sexual assault. So the charge was dismissed. [ MUSIC ] There are many reasons why a student would choose to not go to the police, and go to, you know, a campus adjudication process. Many people don't want the outcome to be the person that attacked them to go to jail. If you're a person of color. Or if you're ****, the process of going to the police can also be one that is not necessarily competent or great to deal with. Some people seek out resources from their school in order to make sure they're not living in the same dorm as a person who assaulted them, which is very different from making sure that someone goes to jail. And I also think that improving processes on campus across the board. Including you know, therapy for survivors, adequate rape crisis centers, and adequate academic interim measures, are things that are important for everyone to have the police absolutely cannot give you when you're a student. Everyday I'm afraid of leaving my room. Even seeing people who remotely look like my rapist is a scary thing for me. Last semester, I was working in the dark room in the photography department. Which is a small dark room. He asked permission from his teacher to come and work in the darkroom during my class. I started crying and hyperventilating and. As long as he's on campus with me he can continue to harass me. They're setting up for graduation for all of the seniors and all of the bleachers are coming up on campus. And, I was just thinking about the fact that. Because of what the administration did, I'm going to have to be sitting on those bleachers with my rapist and a serial rapist at that. Knowing that he's going to get the same education as me and I'll be feeling horrible on my graduation day. A lot of students think that when they go to a campus, if they see that there are zero sexual assaults reported that that's a really positive thing, that, that must mean that campus is incredibly safe, it's going to be a great place. But actually when you consider the fact that the overall rates of sexual assaults on campus are as high as one in four, if you see a campus reporting zero sexual assaults that should actually be a red flag. [ MUSIC ] I feel like it's taken over my entire, entire college experience. This happened on the first day of my sophomore year. And here I am. I just finished my last day of school for my junior year. And I'm still talking about it and still thinking about it. And I know that I'm going to look back on my entire Columbia experience and see that's how the administration has failed me. and. 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