2018 Ivy League Admissions Overview
In the last post, we provided a summary of the Class of 2022 admissions results at top-tier colleges and universities. It included Table A, a comparison of the Class of 2022 to the Class of 2021 for application volumes, admitted students, and the percentage of applicants admitted. This week, we’ll take a more detailed look at admissions results in the Ivy League and a few Ivy-peer and near-Ivy schools. As predicted in a previous post about the surge in application volumes this year, the admissions rate declined to record lows at most of these elite institutions.
In the next post we’ll take a closer look at college admissions results at elite liberal arts colleges and the Public Ivies. We include an updated Table A in this post and will include a final update in the next post in order to include data from schools that report their results later than most.
University of Pennsylvania
Penn admitted 3,731 students to the Class of 2022 from 44,482 applicants, for an acceptance rate of 8.4%, a record for the school. Last year’s class had an admissions rate of 9.2% and the previous year’s was 9.4%. The rate has been trending significantly downward since the Class of 2013, when it was 17.1%. The Early Decision (ED) acceptance rate for the Class of 2022, released in December, also set a new low at 18.5% — a significant drop from last year’s 22% ED rate and the previous year’s 23.2% rate.
Harvard University
A record-low 4.6% of Harvard applicants received offers of admission to the Class of 2022. This is the first year that Harvard’s admissions rate has been below 5%. In the Regular Decision (RD) round, only 1,962 applicants obtained spots in the upcoming freshman class. This represents 2.43% of the total 36,119 RD applicants. The accepted RD students join 964 students who were admitted through Harvard‘s EA process in December. This year’s acceptance rate is the lowest in the school’s history after the previous record of 5.25% set last year. This is the fourth consecutive class in which the percentage of admitted students has decreased.
Yale University
In all, 35,306 students applied for admission to Yale this year and 2,229 were admitted. Yale had a record-setting EA cycle for the Class of 2022 in which 5,733 students submitted applications and 842 were admitted for a rate of 14.7%. The overall Class of 2022 admissions rate is 6.3% compared to a 6.9% last year. As was the case with the Yale Class of 2021, this year’s class is expected to be about 15% larger than previous incoming classes due to Yale’s recent expansion.
Cornell University
51,328 students applied to Cornell’s Class of 2022, setting a record for the size of its applicant pool. Of the applicants, 5,288 were granted admission, including 1,533 in the EA round. The overall admissions rate fell this year to a record low of 10.3%.
Dartmouth College
22,033 students applied to the Class of 2022 at Dartmouth, the largest number of applicants in five years. Of these, 1,925 were granted admission for an overall admissions rate of 8.7%, a record low. Of this year’s admitted students, 97% are in the top 10% of their high school class, an increase of 1% from last year. Mean test scores for the SAT are 1497, a record high, and 33 for the ACT.
Princeton University
Princeton admitted 1,941 students to the Class of 2022, which is 5.5% of the record-setting 35,370 applicants, making it the school’s most selective admissions year to date, down from last year’s 6.1% rate. This year’s applicant pool was the largest in the University’s history, the culmination of a doubling of the annual applicant pool over the past decade and a half. Of this year’s applicants, 14,273 had a 4.0 grade point average or better, and 17,692 had scores of 1,400 or higher on the SAT. The applicant pool included students from 11,126 high schools in 170 countries.
Brown University
Brown University offered admission to its next freshman class to 1,829 RD applicants. These students combine with the 737 students offered admission in the ED program for a total of 2,566 students admitted to the Class of 2022. The admissions offers represent 7.2% of the 35,438 students who applied, the largest applicant pool in Brown’s history.
Columbia University
Columbia received 4,085 EA applications for the Class of 2022 compared to 4,086 last year. Columbia hasn’t released the number admitted from this pool, but if we extrapolate from the Class of 2021, then about 650 students, or 16%, were admitted. Columbia had the largest number of RD applicants in the school’s history, receiving 37,389 applications, marking a 3% increase from last year. The overall admission rate was 5.8%, down from 6% percent last year.
Stanford University
From a pool of 47,450 applicants, Stanford offered admission to 2,040 students, including the 750 who were accepted last December through the EA program. The overall admissions rate of 4.3% once again establishes Stanford as the most selective institution in the country. Students admitted to the Class of 2022 represent all 50 states, plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Of the admitted students, 11.4% are international students by citizenship, representing 63 countries.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
For the MIT Class of 2022, with the EA and RD rounds combined, 21,706 students submitted applications and 1,464 of them were admitted. MIT’s EA admissions rate for the Class of 2022 was 6.9% while its RD rate was 6.6%.
Washington University in St. Louis
In all, 31,300 students applied for admission to the Washington University and of these 15% were admitted. 89% of students admitted are in the top 10% of their high school classes. The median SAT score is 1530 and the median ACT score is 34. Admitted students are from all 50 states and 42 foreign nations.
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins received 29,128 applicants to its Class of 2022 and 2,894 were admitted. 610 of these students earned admission in the ED round and 2,284 were admitted in the RD round. The admitted students represent all 50 states, 5 U.S. territories, and 87 foreign nations.
Georgetown University
In total, 22,897 students submitted applications to Georgetown for the Class of 2022, up from last year’s previous record of 21,459 applicants. Among all applicants from the combined EA and RD rounds, 14.5% were admitted. This marks the lowest admissions rate in the school’s history.
Duke University
More than 37,300 students applied for admission to Duke this year, the highest number ever, with almost 33,300 applying under Duke’s RD program. Among the RD applicant pool, 2,123 students, or 6.4%, received acceptance notices inviting them to become members of the Class of 2022. Another 99 students who applied EA and whose decisions were deferred until March were also admitted. The combined EA and RD data shows that Duke received 37,302 applications and admitted 3,097 students, or 8.3%.
(New information in Italics)
| Institution | Applicants 2018 | Admit 2018 | Admit % 2018 | Applicants 2017 | Admit 2017 | Admit % 2017 |
| Amherst | 9,722 | 1,224 | 13 | 7,716 | 1,139 | 15 |
| Barnard | 7,897 | 1,088 | 14 | 7,071 | 1,131 | 16 |
| Boston College | 31,000 | 8,400 | 27 | 28,500 | 9,200 | 32 |
| Boston University | 64,473 | 14,184 | 22 | 60,815 | 15,204 | 25 |
| Bowdoin | 9,081 | 935 | 10 | 7,251 | 972 | 8 |
| Carnegie Mellon | 24,351 | – | – | – | – | – |
| Colby | 12,313 | 1,601 | 13 | – | – | – |
| Colorado College | – | – | 15 | 8,215 | 1,212 | 15 |
| Columbia | 40,203 | 2,214 | 6 | 37,389 | 2,185 | 6 |
| Cornell | 51,328 | 5,288 | 10 | 47,038 | 5,889 | 13 |
| Dartmouth | 22,033 | 1,925 | 9 | 20,034 | 2,092 | 10 |
| Davidson | 5,700 | 1,066 | 19 | – | – | – |
| Duke | 37,302 | 3,097 | 8 | 34,400 | 3,174 | 9 |
| Emory | 27,982 | 5,103 | 18 | – | – | – |
| Emory (Oxford) | 16,230 | 4,144 | 26 | – | – | – |
| Georgetown | 22,897 | 3,237 | 15 | 21,459 | 3,219 | 15 |
| Georgia Tech | 35,600 | 7,832 | 22 | 31,484 | 5,172 | 22 |
| Hamilton | 6,238 | 1,300 | 21 | 5,678 | 1,340 | 24 |
| Harvard | 42,749 | 1,962 | 5 | 39,506 | 2,056 | 5 |
| Harvey Mudd | 4,101 | 594 | 14 | – | – | – |
| Haverford | 4,682 | 877 | 19 | 4,424 | 859 | 19 |
| Johns Hopkins | 29,128 | 2,894 | 10 | 26,578 | 3,133 | 12 |
| Middlebury | 9,230 | 1,696 | 18 | 8,910 | 1,753 | 20 |
| MIT | 21,708 | 1,464 | 7 | 20,247 | 1,438 | 7 |
| NYU | 75,037 | 15,722 | 19 | 67,232 | – | – |
| UNC – Chapel Hill | 43,384 | 4,205 | 10 | – | – | – |
| Notre Dame | 20,370 | 3,586 | 18 | – | – | – |
| Northeastern | 62,000 | 11,780 | 19 | – | – | – |
| Northwestern | 40,425 | 3,392 | 8 | 37,255 | 3,371 | 9 |
| Olin | 882 | 125 | 14 | – | – | – |
| Pomona | 10,245 | 707 | 7 | 9,046 | 741 | 8 |
| Princeton | 35,370 | 1,941 | 5 | 31,056 | 1,890 | 6 |
| Richmond | 11,800 | 800 | 7 | – | – | – |
| Stanford | 47,450 | 2,040 | 4 | 44,073 | 2,050 | 5 |
| Swarthmore | 10,749 | 980 | 9 | 9,383 | 960 | 10 |
| Tufts | 21,502 | 3,139 | 15 | 21,101 | 3,128 | 15 |
| Tulane | 28,813 | 6,598 | 17 | – | – | – |
| UC – Berkeley | 89,294 | – | – | – | – | – |
| UC – Los Angeles | 113,409 | – | – | – | – | – |
| UC – San Diego | 97,670 | – | – | – | – | – |
| UC – Santa Barbara | 92,017 | – | – | – | – | – |
| U of Pennsylvania | 44,482 | 3,371 | 8 | 40,413 | 3,699 | 9 |
| USC | 64,256 | 8,258 | 13 | 56,000 | 8,980 | 16 |
| U of Virginia | 37,222 | 9,850 | 26 | – | – | – |
| Vanderbilt (RD) | 30,146 | 2,199 | 7 | 27,841 | 2,382 | 9 |
| Vassar | 8,312 | 1,996 | 24 | – | – | – |
| Villanova | 22,727 | 6,545 | 29 | – | – | – |
| Washington USTL | 31,300 | 4,695 | 15 | 30,400 | 4,864 | 16 |
| Wellesley | 6,670 | 1,267 | 19 | 5,700 | 1,197 | 21 |
| Wesleyan | 12,788 | – | – | 12,543 | 1,932 | 15 |
| Williams | 9,559 | 1,163 | 12 | 8,593 | 1,253 | 15 |
| Yale | 35,306 | 2,229 | 6 | 32,900 | 2,272 | 6 |
IvySelect provides superior comprehensive, individualized counseling based on years of experience in assisting students in achieving their educational goals. Some of the top-tier institutions to which our students have been admitted are Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Penn, Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, Stanford, Duke, MIT, Cal Tech, Oxford (U.K.), Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Georgetown, Vanderbilt, Rice, Washington University in St. Louis, Emory, Notre Dame, Wake Forest, USC, Berkeley, UCLA, NYU, Boston College, Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Wesleyan, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Haverford, Wellesley, Vassar, Barnard, Colgate, Hamilton, Michigan, Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin, Tulane, Boston University, and the University of Rochester.
