Early applications continue to increase at the elite colleges
With the first rounds of Early Decision, Restrictive Early Action and Early Action for the Class of 2027 now complete, only 14 elite colleges reported acceptance rates out of a total of 61 highly selective colleges we regularly track.
The reporting colleges include Brown University, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Emory University, Georgia Institute of Technology (reporting EA1 for Georgia residents only), Harvard University, MIT, Northwestern University, University of Notre Dame, University of Virginia, Washington University in St Louis, Williams College and Yale University.
The number of Early applications received increased at 12 of the 14 colleges, while MIT and Columbia both experienced decreases in the number of Early applications received.
Except at Emory University, which increased its intake of Early applicants by more than 100 over the prior year, the remaining colleges maintained a relatively stable number of acceptances in line with prior years acceptances.
The decreases in acceptance rates were driven by the increases in applications received (denominator inflation) rather than by changes in the number of acceptances issued by these colleges. Chart 2 below shows you that the number of acceptances issued remained relatively stable across the colleges that reported Early application details.
The 2 charts below illustrate the changes in applications received and changes in acceptance rates for 13 of the 14 reporting colleges (Georgia Tech is excluded) over a 3 year period for the classes of 2027, 2026 and 2025.
Chart 1 - Number of Applications Received (Class of 2027, 2026, 2025)
You can see from the chart below that there were no big swings in Early applications received except at Duke University, MIT, University of Notre Dame and University of Virginia.
Duke experienced volatility in the number of Early applications received, decreasing by 20% between the class of 2025 and 2026 and then increasing by 21% between the class of 2026 and 2027.
At MIT, the 19% drop-off in applications for the class of 2027 is most likely attributable to MIT’s reinstatement of the test score requirement for all applicants.
At University of Notre Dame, the number of Restrictive Early Action applications increased substantially in the last 2 Early application cycles, by 25% between the class of 2025 and 2026 and by a further 15% between the class of 2026 and 2027.
University of Virginia has seen its Early applications increase steadily, with a 19% increase between the class of 2025 and 2026 and a further 21% increase in Early applications between the class of 2026 and 2027.
Increases in Early applications for the class of 2027 at the remaining 10 colleges were in the range of 14% or less. Columbia University suffered a 9% decrease in number of Early Applications for the class of 2027 attributable most likely to its drop to number 18 from number 2 in the US News college rankings.
Chart 2 - Number of Acceptances Issued (Class of 2027, 2026 and 2025)
While there is noticeable year-to-year variability in the number of Early applications received as shown in Chart 1 above, there is substantially less year-to-year variability in the number of Early acceptances issued by the 13 colleges as shown in Chart 2 below.
Since colleges cannot easily increase their student capacity, it makes sense that the number of students a college accepts at the Early application stage does not vary much from year to year.
As more applicants decide to pursue the Early application path to increase their chances of admission, we expect to see bigger drops in acceptance rates as the denominator inflates substantially.
What the 13 Colleges Did with their Early Applications
Of the 8 Ivy League colleges, only 5 of them shared details about the Early application round for the class of 2027. Cornell did not disclose details of their ED acceptance rates, nor did Princeton, which reinstated its Single Choice Early Action (SCEA) program this application season. University of Pennsylvania did not disclose details but it did share that it received the largest number of ED applications for the class of 2027 compared to previous years.
At Brown University, the acceptance rate fell from 14.6% to 13% due to a combination of a 10% increase in ED applications and a reduction in applicants accepted in absolute terms from 896 for the class of 2026 to 879 for the class of 2027.
At Dartmouth College, ED applications increased by 14% while acceptances fell by only 1% from 20.1% to 19.2% as Dartmouth accepted 48 more ED applicants for the class of 2027 compared to the prior year.
At Harvard, Restricted Early Action applicants increased by a fractional 1.6% over the prior year, while the acceptance rate decreased slightly from 7.9% to 7.3% due to a reduction in applicants accepted from 740 for the class of 2026 to 722 for the class of 2027.
Yale’s Restrictive Early Action applicants for the class of 2027 increased by about 6% over the class of 2026, while its acceptance rate dropped to 10% from 11.5% the year before. This drop was due to a combination of the increased number of applications and a reduction in number of applicants accepted from 837 for the class of 2026 to 776 for the class of 2027.
Columbia University experienced a 9% fall in number of ED applications for the class of 2027 compared to the prior year. Columbia accepted the same number of 650 ED applicants for the classes of 2027, 2026 and 2025. As a result, the decreased applications drove its acceptance rate for the class of 2027 up to 11.3% from 10.3% the prior year. Columbia’s drop in ED applications is likely a result of its unfortunate drop in the US News college rankings, a drop that may have caused some applicants to turn away from Columbia.
We are of the view that the US News college rankings drop for Columbia is not a reflection of any real deterioration in the quality of a Columbia education. As Columbia was unable to verify certain classroom data on teacher-student ratios, Columbia withdrew from the US New rankings for the 2023 year leaving US News without the requisite data to conduct a thorough assessment of Columbia’s position in the rankings leading to the drop from #2 to #18.
At Duke University, ED applications for the class of 2027 increased by 21%. A reduction in number of acceptances of ED applicants to 800 from 855 despite a substantial increase in applications pushed Duke’s ED acceptance rate down to 16.5% for the class of 2027 from 21.3% for the class of 2026.
At Emory University, ED applications increased by 9.5% for the class of 2027 compared to the prior year. Unlike some of its peers, Emory increased the number of ED applicants accepted to 903 compared to 804 for the class of 2026, thereby boosting its ED acceptance rate to 37.4% for the class of 2027 from 36.5% for the class of 2026.
Like Columbia, MIT also experienced a drop in number of Early applications for the class of 2027, but for rather different reasons. MIT’s 19% drop in applications is most likely attributable to the reinstatement of test score requirements for applicants. MIT also reduced the number of applicants it accepted to 685 for the class of 2027 compared to 697 for the class of 2026. However, due to the substantial decrease in EA applicants, MIT’s Early Action acceptance rate increased to 5.7% for the class of 2027 compared to 4.7% for the class of 2026.
Northwestern University disclosed its ED application details for the class of 2027, reporting a 21.2% ED acceptance rate for a total of 5,200 ED applicants. Northwestern University has not disclosed its ED acceptance details for the class of 2026, so we can only compare current ED acceptance data to that of the class of 2025, when Northwestern accepted 25% of ED applicants with 17% less ED applicants than the class of 2027. For both the class of 2025 and the class of 2027, Northwestern accepted approximately the same number of 1,100 applicants.
University of Notre Dame experienced a 15% increase in Restrictive Early Action applicants. While it did increase the number of REA applicants accepted to 1,701 for the class of 2027 compared to 1,675 for the class of 2026, its acceptance rate still fell to 15.2% from 17.3% the prior year.
University of Virginia experienced a 21% increase in ED applications for the class of 2027 compared to the prior year and its ED acceptance rate dropped to 24.5% compared to 31.7% for the class of 2026 as a result of a decrease in ED applicants accepted to 1,038 compared to 1,109 ED applicants accepted in the prior year.
Washington University in St Louis student newspaper reported a 35% ED acceptance rate for the class of 2027 reflecting a substantial increase over the 27% ED acceptance rate for the class of 2026.
Williams College experienced a 16% increase in ED applications for the class of 2027 compared to the prior year, and saw its ED acceptance rate drop to 27% for the class of 2027 compared to 31.3% for the prior year. Williams accepted 255 ED applicants in each year for both the class of 2027 and 2026.
Yale University experienced a 6% increase in Restrictive Early Action applications for the class of 2027 compared to the prior year, and Yale saw its REA acceptance rate fall to 10% compared to 11.5% the prior year. Overall, Yale reduced the number of REA applicants accepted to 776 for the class of 2027 from 837 the prior year.
While Georgia Tech reported its EA1 acceptance details, we have to wait for EA to get a complete picture as EA1 is restricted to applicants who are residents of Georgia only.
Table of Early Applications, Early Acceptances and Acceptance Rates for Class of 2027, 2026 and 2025
You can see from the table below that a majority of these 61 highly selective colleges prefer to withhold their Early application data for almost 2 years before they release this information in the Common Data Sets.
In the table below, Early Application data for the class of 2025 is based on the 2021/2022 Common Data Sets. We can expect colleges that have not yet done so to release Early application data for the class of 2026 in April to May this year when they release their 2022/2023 Common Data Sets.
Early Decision Strategy
For now, Early Decision and Restrictive Early Action acceptance rates continue to be much higher than Regular Decision acceptance rates.
Applicants who meet the following criteria should take advantage of Early Decision to gain an edge in admission:
They are very certain that the college is their top priority, and they will be thrilled to attend, if accepted
They will be ready with test scores, essays and teacher recommendations by November 1 or 15
Financial aid will not be an issue if the college offers binding Early Decision only
For applicants who feel that there are multiple colleges that they would be thrilled to attend, the Early Decision card should be used on the “reach” college where ED affords you the best chance of admission. With the “just right” colleges, you can still apply Regular Decision should your ED application fail.
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