text: Admissions According to the school's website, students are admitted on five criteria: having a family income less than twice the federal poverty level, being age 4 to 15, having an IQ over 80, lacking serious behavioral problems, and being able to "benefit from the school's program". The school is cost-free for students. , 73 percent of students are from the state of Pennsylvania. The acceptance rate is low, around 14% in 1991. Each year, an average of 12.5% of the student population leaves, mostly by graduating or being removed by their parents. A quarter to a third of departures are expulsions.
  Demographics
  The school housed 2,020 students in the 2017–18 school year. Of these, 44.5% were white, 33.8% were black, 8.7% were Hispanic, 1.0% were Asian, and 11.0% identified with two or more races. There were 395 students in pre-K through 4th grade, 545 students in grades 5–8, and 950 students in grades 10–12. According to the school's website, there are roughly an equal number of boys and girls. While in 2000 only about one tenth of students had a deceased parent, nearly 90 percent of the school's come from single-parent homes as of 2020, with an average income of $22,000.
  The Compass Project enables Milton Hershey School students to develop leadership skills and build character. The school's Multicultural and Global Education program allows high school students to travel internationally and gain worldly experience and global awareness.
  Non-sectarian Christian religious training has been mandatory since the school's beginning. School guidelines prohibit pressuring students to convert faiths; some students, however, have reported being proselytized by their house parents.