The 61 Colleges with Low Acceptance Rates
Updated on August 19, 2022
Almost 2.1 million applications were submitted to these 61 selective colleges through Early Decision, Early Action and Regular Decision for the class of 2025, with 247,080 acceptances issued and ultimately, 111,869 accepted applicants matriculated to these 61 colleges.
These numbers translate to an average acceptance rate of 11.8%, with a wide range of acceptance rates at the individual colleges from 3% at Harvard University to 25% at Babson College, Villanova University and Wake Forest University . A record number of 23 out of 61 of the selective colleges reported acceptance rates in the single digits.
These acceptance rates are the lowest in history until you look at the acceptance rates for the class of 2026 which are lower still. And these are the hardest colleges to get into in America today.
As acceptance rates have dropped precipitously at selective colleges, anxiety and stress for both applicants and their parents and applicants have skyrocketed. The resulting panic has driven applicants to apply to twenty or more colleges just to be safe, compared to a more reasonable and manageable six to eight colleges just a few short years ago. The fear of not getting in somewhere has led to an untenable situation for applicants aspiring to study at a highly selective college.
Every one of these selective colleges has a finite number of seats to offer applicants. As the number of applicants balloon for a variety of reasons, it logically follows that the acceptance rates will plummet creating the illusion of extreme exclusivity at these colleges.
To get a better picture of what’s going on, we compiled acceptance rates for Early Decision. Early Action and Regular Decision at these 61 highly selective colleges with acceptance rates of 25% or less for their class of 2025. And let’s take a closer look at what the numbers tell us.
Table of Applications and Acceptance Rates at Highly Selective Colleges - Class of 2025
Note: The acceptance data is compiled/computed from the Common Data Sets, college websites and/or college related websites like on-campus student blogs and newspapers. The numbers highlighted in yellow are for Early Decision.
Note: These 61 highly selective colleges were selected based on acceptance rates of 25% and less and SAT middle 50% test score ranges where the low end of the score range was 1250 and high end of the score range was 1400 and higher. (See Academic Statistics of the Highly Selective Colleges)
It Pays to Apply Early Decision
As you can see in the table above where the Early Decision statistics are highlighted in yellow, it is clear that where Early Decision (ED) was offered by the colleges, their ED acceptance rates were anywhere between double to five times the acceptance rates for Regular Decision (RD) applications.
The colleges clearly reward those who show commitment early. (Readers should note that applicants are allowed to submit only one ED application, and they must matriculate, if accepted)
A total of 48 out of 61 of these highly selective colleges offer Early Decision application.
All ED acceptance rates were in the double digits, ranging from a low of 14% at Pomona College to a high of 61% at Colgate University.
On the high end of the acceptance range for Early Decision, Colgate University accepted a whopping 61% of its ED applicants, Villanova University accepted 60% of its ED applicants, Wesleyan University accepted 55% of its ED applicants, Northeastern University accepted 53% of ED applicants, Bates College and Hamilton College each accepted 46% of ED applicants, Middlebury College, Wellesley College and Haverford College each accepted about 40% of ED applicants.
Pomona College, Johns Hopkins University, University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, Duke University, Rice University and Vanderbilt University accepted between 14% and 18% of their ED applicants at the lower end of the acceptance range.
For 14 of the colleges, ED acceptances made up the majority of their incoming freshman class of 2025. These colleges include Barnard College, Bates College, Brown University, Carleton College, Claremont McKenna College, Cornell University, Davidson College, Grinnell College, Johns Hopkins University, Middlebury College, Northwestern University, Vanderbilt University, Washington University in St Louis, Wellesley College and Wesleyan University.
At Boston College, Colorado College, Duke University, Haverford College and University of Pennsylvania, ED acceptances made up about half of the incoming freshman class of 2025.
Obviously for applicants who are not concerned with financial aid packages, ED is the way to go to lock in admission to their college of choice ahead of everyone else. Low income applicants with strong academics can also apply ED to colleges with generous financial aid packages as many of these colleges commit to meeting all of an applicant’s financial needs when their family income falls below a certain threshold.
Early Action is also a Good Way to Go
An Early Action acceptance, which is non-binding, locks in a place at a college and provides peace of mind even as an applicant explores further options through the Regular Decision process.
But Early Action options amongst these 61 highly selective colleges is somewhat limited since only 11 of them offer EA as an option - Babson College, Colorado College, Georgetown, Georgia Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tulane University, University of Chicago, University of Michigan, UNC Chapel Hill, University of Southern California and Villanova University.
Unfortunately, most of these 11 colleges that offer EA do not disclose their EA statistics. Only Georgetown University, Georgia Institute of Technology, MIT disclosed EA data, and it looks like the acceptance rates are only slightly higher than the acceptance rates for their Regular Decision rounds.
Georgetown University is unusual in restricting its EA applicants from applying ED at other colleges even though the EA acceptance is non-binding.
Currently 5 of the 61 highly selective colleges including CalTech, Harvard, Yale, Stanford and University of Notre Dame offer a variation of EA called Restrictive Early Action (REA), which is a good compromise for very strong applicants for whom the size of the financial aid package matters. Princeton, which offered REA in the past, has temporarily suspended their REA program.
Note: Princeton University has reinstated its Restrictive Early Action Program for the 2022/2023 application cycle.
The advantage of REA is that an acceptance is non-binding on the applicant and does not mandate that the accepted applicant enroll in that college unlike an acceptance issued under Early Decision which is binding on the applicant. An applicant accepted under REA can still wait to see what financial aid packages they are offered from acceptances in the RD round before making a final decision where to attend college.
Harvard and Yale disclosed their REA acceptance rates for the class of 2025, and though still in the single digits, they are double to triple the acceptance rates for RD applicants. Harvard - 7% vs 3%. Yale - 11% vs 4%
However, the REA program comes with restrictions. While there are small variations in REA restrictions between the 5 colleges offering REA, generally an REA applicant may apply early to public and foreign universities under non-binding programs (EA), but that applicant cannot apply to any private college under a binding (ED) program or non-binding one (EA) until an REA decision has been issued. Once an REA decision has been made, an applicant is free to apply second round ED, if available, and of course they can apply in the RD rounds.
Regular Decision Round was Tough for Class of 2025
The huge numbers of applicants to the selective colleges for a very small number of available spaces makes the Regular Decision round a tough process for applicants.
In addition to application inflation driven by applicants who apply to 20 colleges to increase their odds of getting accepted, many applicants for the class of 2025 were encouraged to apply when colleges, for Covid-19 driven reasons, went test optional thus removing lower test scores as a perceived obstacle to admission to a selective college.
Read about Do Test Scores Improve Chances of Admission?
Colleges reported Regular Decision acceptance rates of between 3% (Harvard and Columbia) and 25% (Wake Forest University and United States Merchant Marine Academy), with a total of 23 colleges reporting acceptance rates in the single digits for the Regular Decision round.
Except for requiring a stellar academic record, selective colleges have generally played it very coy in terms of what they want in an applicant. Most use generic descriptions like wanting applicants who have challenged themselves and moved out of their comfort zones or applicants who have demonstrated passion, leadership and drive through their activities. The colleges describe their admissions process as holistic.
See Key Admission Criteria Used by Top Colleges
Since none of these descriptions lend themselves to objective measurement, and can be interpreted quite subjectively, applicants are encouraged to submit applications believing that they have met these descriptions. The unfortunate outcome has been an avalanche of applications from hopeful applicants who have their aspirations crushed when they receive a large number of rejection letters.
The colleges want their cake and eat it without any thought or sensitivity to an applicant’s situation or aspirations. Greater transparency on admission criteria and perhaps sharing of diverse profiles of successful applicants would be helpful in enlightening potential applicants about who is likely to make the cut.
Huge numbers of applicants may make the colleges look good but they end up making a large number of applicants feel very bad.
Meanwhile, those applicants who can afford it end up shelling out large amounts of money to experts who can “divine the tea leaves” at each of these selective schools and advise their applicant clients of where their best chances lie.
The Yields Are Not Great for Some Selective Colleges
Despite low acceptance rates for the class of 2025, quite a number of selective colleges had remarkably low yields, where less than 30% of accepted students actually matriculated to the college. With so many more applicants submitting multiple applications, it becomes harder for the colleges to predict which accepted applicants will actually matriculate to them.
Since an applicant can ultimately only attend one college even when accepted to several, colleges seen to be amongst the most elite experienced yields that generally exceeded 60%.
Harvard with an 85% yield, MIT with an 87% yield, Princeton with an 78% yield, and Stanford with a 80% yield rise above the norm, indicating that these four colleges ranked as first choice for more students than any other college.
For colleges outside of the super elite ones, predicting yield is likely a guessing game given that these colleges receive applications from applicants who do not consider them as their first choice school. These applicants, though very qualified and attractive to the college, will likely never accept an offer of admission since they are likely to get into their higher choice colleges as well. In order to ensure that they reach enrolment goals, these colleges have to issue substantial numbers of acceptances knowing that their yields may end up quite low.
Important Takeaway for Aspiring Applicants
To avoid the absolute disaster of being rejected by every single college you applied to, applicants should make sure that their college selection is sufficiently diverse and includes colleges outside of the 61 colleges identified in this article. Certainly make sure that not all of your “safety” schools are from this list.
See: “Best of the Rest” Colleges
See: Application and Financial Aid Deadlines for Top Colleges 2022/2023
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