which college has lowest acceptance rate

Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts)

Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts)

Admissions Rate: 5.4%

Total Undergraduates: 6,710

Total Admissions: 37,307

Tuition & Fees: $65,609

SAT Range: 1470-1580

ACT Range: 33-35

Stanford University (Stanford, California)

Stanford University (Stanford, California)

• 3%

The school with the lowest acceptance rate is Stanford University. This private university is located in Palo Alto, CA and has 16,963 students enrolled. Of those students, 7,034 are undergraduates.

Columbia University (New York, New York)

Student life at Columbia University centers around its urban campus located in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Students living on-campus take advantage of the numerous dining options, libraries and intramural sports fields. Off-campus, students can explore Manhattan and experience world-class museums, restaurants, theaters and nightlife.

Columbia University is home to 18 undergraduate colleges and schools. For example, one of Columbia’s best known programs is its School of Journalism, with 130 professors who have won Pulitzer Prizes for excellence in reporting. The university also offers a Master’s in Fine Arts program through its School of Arts that awards 44 degrees each year.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Massachusetts)

The lowest acceptance rates in the country belong to schools that have well-established reputations as being highly selective. In fact, you can only find three schools with acceptance rates below 10% in the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) College Navigator database. Most of these elite schools are also extremely expensive, which contributes to their small student bodies and high selectivity.

Here’s a look at some of the selective colleges that can be extremely hard to get into:

Princeton University (Princeton, New Jersey)

Princeton is an Ivy League university that ranks among the top schools in the country. The school encourages students to engage in independent research, and it’s known for its academic rigor.

Located in New Jersey, Princeton University has a 5.5 percent acceptance rate.

Colleges with low acceptance rates are primarily private colleges and universities.

College acceptance rates are determined each year by the number of students accepted to a specific college or university divided by the total number of applicants. According to U.S. News and World Report, there are some colleges and universities with low admission rates because they are not able to accept all applicants due to space limitations or other factors. While most of these competitive schools tend to be private colleges and universities, there are also some public universities that have low admissions rates.

• Private Colleges with Low Acceptance Rates
• New England: Wesleyan University in Connecticut
• Mid-Atlantic: Columbia University in New York
• South: Rice University in Texas
• Midwest: Northwestern University in Illinois
• West: Stanford University in California