It’s that time of year again. Decision letters are out, students are deciding where to enroll, and the Class of 2027 acceptance rates (2022-23 applicants) are looking low, low, low.
We’ve been saying for years now that the COVID-19 pandemic (and the subsequent wave of test-optional policies) completely upended the college application process. Elite admission rates that once were low but manageable are now outrageous—and at most universities, they’re not improving.
See for yourself:
Who is still smashing records?
The majority of highly selective universities we tracked had lower overall acceptance rates this year than last year. Part of the issue is the positive feedback loop that many universities experience: as their reputations grow, their applicant pools grow, their acceptance rates drop, and the cycle repeats.
Boston College is a force to be reckoned with. For each of the last five years, it has been inching its way from the highly selective tier into the elite tier—and at this point it’s fair to say BC has arrived. Just 15% of this year’s 36,525 applicants were offered admission, compared to nearly 27% five years ago.
Boston University saw a record number of Early Decision applicants this year (6,866 to be exact) and significantly increased interest in the College of Engineering (13%), Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences (11.5%), and the College of Fine Arts (10.6%), making those programs even more selective than usual. BU’s overall acceptance rate hit a new low of 11% this year, nearly half what it was just three years ago.
Johns Hopkins didn’t see a huge acceptance rate decline this year (from 6.5% to 6.0%), but its overall trend is one of continually smaller rates. We would expect to see JHU at or below 6% next year if this trend holds.
Northeastern has not yet released its overall acceptance data for 2023. For now, Northeastern has earned itself a spot on the “smashing records” list due to the precipitous acceptance rate drop it experienced last year, from 18% to a mere 6.7% (the result of a nearly 18% increase in applicants, from 75,233 to 91,100). Given that NEU has reported a record 96,327 applications for this year, we expect its already miniscule acceptance rate is going nowhere but down.
Notre Dame dropped a full percentage point from 12.9% to 11.9% overall acceptance rate, a result of a 2% increase in Regular Decision applicants and a 25% increase in Restrictive Early Action applicants.
NYU was once again deluged with a record-breaking number of applications. Last year it was over 105,000—this year, the pile grew to over 120,000 applications. That led to a 4.2% drop in overall acceptance rate, from 12.2% to 8.0%, with three of the undergraduate colleges accepting fewer than 5% of applicants. NYU doesn’t specify which three colleges, but based on historical trends we suspect they are the College of Arts & Science, the Stern School of Business, and the Tisch School of the Arts.
Rice overenrolled for each of the last two years, causing the admissions team to be “more conservative in [their] offers of admission this year.” As a result, its acceptance rate has dropped to a record-breaking 7.7%, down from 8.6% last year.
USC admitted its “most impressive class yet,” saying yes to just 9.9% of their record-high 80,790 applicants. USC also implemented an Early Action deadline for the first time this year, which likely contributed to the increase in applications. Though USC’s acceptance rate did increase significantly for the Class of 2024 (15.8%), it has since dropped every year, and we don’t anticipate that changing any time soon.
UVA reached a record-low 16.3% overall acceptance rate this year. Of course, the overall rate is just one part of the story. Virginians accounted for just 27% of the university’s 56,439 applicants but 44% of its admission offers. As is common at state universities, out-of-state and international applicants faced acceptance rates much lower than in-state applicants.
Yale set a new record-low acceptance rate for the third year in a row, at 4.3% overall. This year saw the largest applicant pool in the college’s history with 52,250 applicants—5% more than last year. The applicant pool has grown by nearly 50% since 2020.
Whose rates may be leveling off?
After several years of significant admission rate decreases, we’re hopeful that these universities may at last have reached a stasis.
Brown’s acceptance rate of 5.1% matches last year’s 5.0% quite closely. Dual degree programs such as Brown-RISD and PLME (Program in Liberal Medical Education) saw much lower acceptance rates—2.2% and 1.8% respectively.
Columbia received slightly fewer applications than the last two years (57,129), resulting in a marginally higher acceptance rate of 3.9% compared to 3.7% each of the last two years. Columbia’s U.S. News ranking took a hit this year, dropping from #2 to #18 as a result of its widely publicized data falsification scandal. This likely contributed to the slight drop in application volume, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see that trend reverse next year as news about the scandal dies down.
Dartmouth received over 28,000 applications for the third year in a row, so it’s not surprising that its acceptance rate has also held steady at 6.2%.
Duke – After dipping to a record-low 5.8% acceptance rate for the Class of 2025, Duke rebounded to 6.2% last year and held steady at 6% this year. The acceptance rate for Regular Decision was 4.8%, slightly higher than the 4.6% and 4.3% rates of the last two years, while the Early Decision acceptance rate was just 16.5%, the lowest in history.
Harvard’s 3.4% acceptance rate increased slightly over last year’s record-low 3.1%, but remains the second-lowest acceptance rate in the college’s history. Based on the college’s application volume since going test-optional in 2020, there is little chance of acceptance rate improvement unless the college returns to requiring standardized testing.
Northwestern has seen its number of applicants increase by about 12,500 since the 2019-20 application cycle, but it’s managed to stabilize its acceptance rate around 7.0% in the last three years.
Tufts has bounced back—just a bit—after the precipitous drops of the past several years (from 15% in 2020 to 11% in 2021 to 9% in 2022, which was later amended to 9.7%). This year’s 9.5% initial acceptance rate is still extremely low, and although it may turn out to be closer to 10.0% by the time the final data is released, getting into Tufts these days is no easy feat.
UCLA receives more applications than any college in the country (149,815 this year), and its resulting 8.5% acceptance rate makes it the most selective public university in the country, rivaled only by the US Naval Academy. About 62% of applicants were California residents, who as usual enjoyed much higher acceptance rates than the 33,066 out-of-state and 22,069 international applicants.
Whose rates are ticking back up?
However rare it may be these days, it’s still encouraging to see when admission rates at any highly selective university go up instead of down. The themes this year: requiring testing and reducing Early Decision admits.
Georgetown and MIT were the only universities on our list to reinstate their testing requirements this year, so it’s not surprising to see that both colleges experienced a decline in overall applications (a 4% drop for Georgetown and a 20% drop for MIT) and an increase to their overall acceptance rates. Georgetown admitted 13% of this year’s applicants, up from 12% last year, while MIT admitted 4.7%, up from last year’s record-low of 3.9%.
Tulane was the only test-optional college on our list to see a significant acceptance rate increase this year, from 10% to 13%. This shift appears to stem primarily from the university’s commitment to lower their Early Decision acceptance rate and increase their Early Action and Regular Decision acceptance rates (they extended roughly 400 additional EA and RD offers compared to last year). The goal was to make more space for lower-income applicants who may not feel comfortable making an Early Decision commitment, but it also had the effect of increasing the accepted student pool overall.
It’s worth nothing that some universities (namely Cornell, Princeton, Stanford, and the University of Pennsylvania) are continuing not to release their acceptance data at this time. UPenn did state that they admitted about 2,400 of their more than 59,000 applicants (the largest applicant pool in the university’s history), an acceptance rate of roughly 4%.
How can you become one of the chosen few?
As acceptance rates continue to plummet, many high school students want to know, “What’s the secret? How can I become one of the lucky 4% or 8% or 10% of admitted students?” Believe it or not, in their press releases, most of these colleges tell you exactly what they’re looking for:
Outstanding academic Achievement
USC: “3.9 was the average GPA for the class of 2027. 41% of students earned perfect grades in high school.”
Dartmouth: “Of those whose schools provide rankings within the class, 444 [out of 1,751 admitted students] are currently ranked first or second in the class.”
Tulane: “Academically, our admitted cohort has a 3.8 average GPA (up from 3.73 last year), a 1473 average SAT and a nearly 33 average ACT (both of which are nearly identical to last year). Roughly 50% were admitted without test scores (up from 46% last year). At schools that provided us with a rank, more than 64% rank in the top 10% of their graduating class (up from 60%).”
MIT: With the “number of applications with exceptional academic credentials increas[ing]... it has never been harder to be admitted to MIT than this year.” The incoming class “is exceptionally talented and will add to our community in important ways.”
Tufts: “Of those admitted students attending high schools with class rank, 91% are ranked in the top 10% of their class.”
Deep Community Engagement and Impact
Boston College: “These students’ intellectual inquiry, the time and care they’ve committed to their communities, and the personal stories they have shared with us are both impressive and inspiring. We look forward to the impact they will have on the Heights and in the world at large.”
Johns Hopkins: “Students admitted to the Class of 2027 in this cohort have developed apps and founded startups, launched a nationwide anti-colorism campaign, and designed a pair of optimized lenses that account for varying conditions of color deficiency glasses. They have also authored books, appeared on Penn & Teller: Fool Us, and created a charity that distributes magic kits to children internationally.
During high school, 93% held part-time jobs, internships, or summer jobs; 64% were active in the arts; and 55% were involved in student government or advocacy work, showing a strong desire to serve their communities. Of the admitted students, 18% will be among the first in their families to go to college.”
Brown: “‘The admitted class of 2027 is remarkable in their level of achievement and the breadth of their backgrounds,’ Powell wrote, describing the cohort as ‘creative, talented, community-oriented and incredibly energized about improving their communities and the world.’”
USC: “We see so many students with great ideas and students who are really motivated to solve the world’s problems, to make the world a better place, and they bring a lot of that optimism into our university.”
Tufts: “By virtue of their lived experiences, accomplishments, and aspirations, these students will positively influence the Tufts community… They shared stories about building inclusive communities, about political involvement, about entrepreneurial ventures. We heard from students who were leaders in athletics and the arts, in the sciences and engineering, in civic-minded causes. We look forward to welcoming to Tufts this class of extraordinary learners and doers.”
Personal Character and Values
Boston University: “While they used to write only about their accomplishments, today’s essays increasingly reflect applicants’ values and priorities. ‘I love seeing this new degree of personalization and honesty,’ [Kelly Walter, Dean of Admissions] says. ‘You get a deeper sense of who people are as individuals, not just as accomplished students, and it’s very powerful.’”
Notre Dame: “There are a lot of intangibles that are really really important. You know, commitment to the mission. Right? How passionate are you about being a leader of character, educating the heart and the mind and going out being a means for good in this world? So how students respond and exhibit enthusiasm around that type of question [matters].”
Duke: “Of particular note to admissions officers was students’ engagement in community service and in acts of kindness to one another, according to Guttentag. ‘Teachers and counselors made sure to tell us about the times when students tangibly supported each other, and we expect those values to be noticeable when they come to Duke.’”
Columbia: “In countless hours of review and discussion, my colleagues and I were inspired again and again by the quality of applicants’ high school work and writing, imaginative voices and bold displays of curiosity and generosity.”
Johns Hopkins: “Their high school teachers and counselors have identified them as lifelong learners and global citizens, and noted their true selflessness, unwavering kindness to others, and insightful conversations beyond school events and grades.”
Diversity (Of All Kinds)
NYU: “NYU’s admitted class of 2027 reaffirms the university’s commitment to higher education access and our enduring position as a university that is ‘open to all, regardless of national origin, religious beliefs, or social background.’”
Yale: “Students admitted to the Class of 2027 represent 50 states, the District of Columbia, four U.S. territories, and 78 countries. They will arrive at Yale as graduates of more than 1,500 secondary schools, and their intended majors include 82 of Yale’s undergraduate academic programs.”
Harvard: “Roughly 28 percent of admitted students intend to concentrate within social sciences, 17.4 percent intend to concentrate in biological sciences, 16 percent in the humanities, 9.5 percent in engineering, 8.8 percent in Computer Science, 6.8 percent in the physical sciences, and 6.5 percent in math. The remaining students, around 6.7 percent of applicants, were undecided.”
Tufts: “Women comprise 56% of the admitted class, up from 55% last year, and men 41%. Four percent identify as non-binary, genderqueer, or preferred not to specify a gender identity. […]
Forty-two percent of admitted students speak a language other than English at home, or have a primary language other than English, including Spanish, Mandarin, Korean, Albanian, Nepali, Kazakh, and Wolof, among many others.”
Georgetown: “Fifty-three percent of the current Class of 2027 identifies as Black, Hispanic or Latinx, Asian, Native American, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, according to Barge.”
Institutional Fit
Dartmouth: “The applicant pool included a remarkable number of students whose academic interests were terrifically aligned with our liberal arts program and its points of excellence. They see themselves thriving in Dartmouth’s small discussion-oriented classrooms. They admire and appreciate the flexibility and independence of the Dartmouth academic calendar, and they see personal opportunities to learn and grow at a college framed by nature.”
Georgetown: “Jack Flanigan, accepted to the SFS for the Class of 2027 and a current high school senior in New York City, received an early action acceptance letter in December. […] ‘I applied to Georgetown because of its unrivaled foreign studies program and its Jesuit identity,’ Flanigan wrote to The Hoya.”
Rice: “A resounding sentiment among many admitted students was anticipation for many of Rice’s quirks and traditions.”
MIT: “Director of Special Projects Chris Peterson SM ’13, said that admitted students were ‘united by a shared standard of rigorous academics, high character, and a strong match with MIT’s mission.’”
For the best chance of admission to any top university, consult a College Advisor who can evaluate your credentials and help you maximize every aspect of your application.