college acceptance rates 2026

Stanford University

Although Stanford is a highly selective university, the school’s admissions officers try to look at each applicant as an individual. “The 4% acceptance rate means that we can be picky, but we don’t want to be too picky,” says Richard Shaw, dean of admission and financial aid. The sheer volume of applications that Stanford receives requires a “holistic review process in which students are considered as individuals rather than mere numbers or résumés.”

The decision-making process is demanding and rigorous—even before applicants set foot on campus for their college visits—but Stanford fully commits itself to supporting students through this process: there are no application fees and the staff responds promptly to every essay question with detailed feedback. In fact, Shaw won’t even see an application until after he or one of his colleagues has written a response to the applicant’s supplemental essay questions.

“By taking students seriously as writers,” Shaw elaborates, “we give them an opportunity not only to tell us about themselves but also about what they have thought about some important issues.”

Princeton University

Princeton is a university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States of America. According to the Princeton University website , it was founded in 1746 and is currently attended by approximately 6,000 undergraduates and 5,000 graduate students. The Princeton Review ranks it as the best university in the United States.

What percentage of people got into Princeton University?

There were over 20 thousand 18 year olds who applied to go to Princeton between 2016-2020. This is a total number of applicants each year; this figure doesn’t represent how many people got accepted each year. Using this information with our knowledge that there are 6 thousand students per year at Princeton we can calculate that around 3% of applicants get accepted into Princeton each year on average

Yale University

The stats speak for themselves: if you’re admitted to Yale, you’re very likely to enroll.

Labeled as one of the most selective universities in the country, Yale College had an acceptance rate of 5.9% in the fall 2018 semester. Only 567 out of 97,895 applicants were accepted that year. If you don’t make the cut, consider a plan B school like New York University (NYU). While it’s not ranked quite as high as Yale on U.S. News and World Report’s list of top national universities, it has a higher acceptance rate at 13%. According to Niche, NYU has over 24,000 enrolled students—a figure that includes undergraduates and graduate students—and nearly 300 clubs and organizations for those who want to get involved on campus.

• Detailed information about Yale will be kept private

Harvard University

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Columbia University

Label for this section: Columbia University

Perspective: 2nd person (you/your/yours) and 3rd person (he/she/it/they)

What this section does: Teaches the reader

Talking points of this section:

• 4 year graduation time-average ACT score-average SAT score-average GPA score-student-faculty ratio

Brown University

Brown University acceptance rate: 6.6%

Brown University is a private Ivy League research university located in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution. The University was established as a Baptist-sponsored institution on March 3, 1764; however, it was not until November 1766 that the charter was officially presented to founders James Manning and Benjamin Brown.

What’s this university like? It’s important to note that even though Brown students have opportunities to study in top programs around the country and abroad, they also have access to programs and opportunities at other Ivy League institutions—they’re not limited by being on a smaller campus or by being away from their support systems. Students are encouraged to take advantage of these resources while still feeling like they have only one college experience.

Dartmouth College

According to data from the College Board, Dartmouth’s admissions department received 21,037 applications for the Class of 2017. Given this large number of applicants, it’s not surprising that only 7.9% were admitted. For comparison, Stanford University had an acceptance rate of 5.2% and Carnegie Mellon University had an acceptance rate of 15.1%.

Simply comparing these percentages may be interesting to some students, but others may find more significance in the raw numbers. Therefore we highly recommend comparing Dartmouth’s acceptance rate—which was 9 percentage points higher than Stanford’s and 2 percentage points lower than Carnegie Mellon’s—with each school’s applicant pool to get a sense for how selective it really is:

There are many factors that could contribute to accepting a smaller number of students every year, but it can’t be denied that small class sizes are a key part of what makes Dartmouth so special. As you can see from this chart below, a wide gap exists between the number of students accepted and those who choose to enroll at Dartmouth each year:

The same trend emerges when you look at the graduation rates after 4 and 5 years instead:

Cornell University

The other day, I received a call from an admissions counselor at Cornell University. She asked if I would be interested in attending their graduate school of business and eventually becoming a success in the field of finance. I was surprised by her offer, as this is not something that is normally discussed on the phone. Before beginning my new career as a Wall Street money man, she explained that I would need to take certain standardized tests for evaluation of my suitability for the program. This included ACT scores, SAT scores and GMAT scores (the latter is used for finance schools).

It turned out that because it was winter break, the classes had not started yet. So when we sat down to go over my test results, she first explained that each test has a specific cut-off score – or you are likely to get accepted with some borderline scores. For example, if you had SAT scores below 1500 and ACT composite scores below 33; chances were good that your score would be enough to pass one of Cornell’s courses towards being admitted into their graduate school of business program. She said they want all students who are serious about learning, but they view their applicants very closely and try to weed out those students who aren’t ready or willing to commit long-term to learning the required material at Cornell University.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT is the best college for engineering majors and one of the hardest colleges to get into. Out of 9,699 freshmen that applied in 2018, 1,000 were accepted to the school. This gives MIT an acceptance rate of just over 10 percent.

The school received 8,868 applications for early action, with 2,051 students admitted between them. The 1,000 students accepted during regular decision represented an overall admit rate of 6.9 percent out of 26,928 applicants – again making it one of the most selective universities in America.

Post-graduation employment statistics are also impressive: According to PayScale’s College Salary Report 2017–18 , MIT alumni earned a median mid-career salary $126,400 (as compared to a national average mid career salary of $92,700). The report ranked MIT first among all private and public universities for highest starting salaries after graduation .

Not only does MIT offer high pay potential post graduation but it also offers some amazing benefits including free health care and tuition refunds . There are no caps on tuition assistance which means that if you have multiple children attending college at the same time you will still be eligible for full assistance from MIT .

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania, referred to as Penn, is a private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1740, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution.

What makes Penn unique:

• The school’s official name is The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania; its founding document was signed on February 5th, 1740.
• Princeton University (pronounced PRIN-CESS-TUH), another Ivy League school, uses an alternative motto that translates to “labor conquers all things.” Make sure you get that one right when applying!
• Penn holds more than 5 million volumes in its library system. This includes a number of rare books and manuscripts—including Abraham Lincoln’s copies of Shakespeare’s plays and James Joyce’s manuscript for Ulysses.
• Due to its massive endowment ($11 billion) and alumni network (68 Nobel Laureates), Penn has ranked as one of U.S.’s top fundraising universities by Forbes magazine since 2001.

California Institute of Technology

Caltech is a school of 4,000 undergraduate students located in Pasadena, California. Caltech maintains the highest acceptance rate in the country—just 4.6% of applicants are accepted. Although the academic rigor at Caltech is intense, there are many opportunities to have fun. The college maintains over 80 student clubs and organizations on campus, and groups frequently get together for outdoor adventures such as hiking or kayaking. Getting involved in clubs can be an easy way to make friends at Caltech, since many students spend a lot of time working on research for professors.

Clubs are also a great way to learn about various engineering fields you might be interested in pursuing at Caltech; the school’s research facilities and long history of breakthroughs attract top-notch professors from all over the world. Many choose to conduct their own independent research projects with these mentors during their time at Caltech if they’re interested in pursuing a Ph.D. degree after graduation. This is especially true for those who plan to focus on physics or biology; although there are several different engineering departments available through which you can earn your degree, it’s hard not to notice that most buildings look like they belong on some kind of futuristic starship when you walk around campus!

This is a list of colleges with the highest acceptance rates

Below are the top ten schools in terms of acceptance rates for the class of 2026, with information about each college’s average SAT score and annual tuition.

• Hamilton College: 87% acceptance rate, average SAT score: 1420, annual tuition: $44,000
• Harvard University: 5% acceptance rate, average SAT score: 2120, annual tuition: $70,000
• Columbia University: 16% acceptance rate, average SAT score: 2130, annual tuition: $70,000
• Princeton University: 7% acceptance rate, average SAT score: 2100+, annual tuition: $65,000
• University of Chicago (Booth School): 10% acceptance rate, average SAT score: 1810+, annual tuition: $60,000
• Northwestern University (Kellogg School): 19% acceptance rate ,average SAT score :1810+,annual tuition :$53.500+
• Duke University (Fuqua Business School): 12% acceptance rate ,average SAT score :1650+,annual tuitions :$51.500+
• –Vanderbilt University —14% aceptance rat e ,average sat s core :1720+,annual tuisi on:-SAT is not required for admission.-Annual Tuition:-Payment plans available