2019 Admission Rates at Top-Tier Institutions

Colleges and universities have been releasing results for their regular decision admissions round since mid-March, and it’s clearly been another in a series of increasingly competitive years for applicants at most top-tier institutions. Admission rates are at historic lows at some of the country’s most highly selective.

Admission rates are an imperfect measure of the quality of an institution, but they have become a proxy for academic excellence as perceived by many families when it comes time to compare schools. One reason is that admission rates have an oversized impact on the calculations used to rank schools in such periodicals as U.S. News & World Reports, Money, and Forbes. Therefore, over time, admission rates have become a driver of demand for an education at elite institutions.

The fact that a school attracts many applicants who know that only a small percentage will be accepted is an indication of the power of a school’s brand. Its admissions rate is the prime generator of prestige when comparisons to peer institutions are made. This is not only true for Ivy League schools and “near-Ivies” like MIT, Stanford, and Chicago, but for all top-tier private and public colleges and universities.

Table A, below, shows the Class of 2023 results for those elite institutions that have reported at least some of their admissions data as of the writing of this post. The University of California will not report 2019 admissions information for its branches until June 1.

Table A: Admissions Results for 2019 and 2018

Ivy League and Other Elite Institutions

Institution	Applicants 2019	Admit 2019	Admits % 2019	Applicants 2018	Admits 2018	Admit % 2018
Amherst	10,567	1,144	11	9,722	1,224	13
Barnard	9,319	1,051	11	7,897	1,088	14
Boston College	35,300	9,500	27	31,000	8,400	27
Boston University	62,210	11,260	18	64,473	14,184	22
Bowdoin	9,332	831	9	9,081	935	10
Brown	38,364	2,551	7	35,438	2,567	7
Carnegie Mellon				24,351
Chicago	35,000	2,065	6
Colby	13,534	1,295	10	12,313	1,601	13
Colorado College	8,552	1,283	14			15
Columbia	42,569	2,190	5	40,203	2,214	6
Cornell	49,118	5,183	11	51,328	5,288	10
Dartmouth	23,650	1,868	8	22,033	1,925	9
Duke	41,613	2,983	7	37,302	3,097	8
Emory	30,017	4,512	15	27,982	5,103	18
Emory (Oxford)	17,500	3,432	20	16,230	4,144	26
Georgetown	22,788	3,202	14	22,897	3,237	15
Georgia Tech	36,936	7,000	19	35,600	7,832	22
Hamilton	8,338	1,334	16	6,238
Harvard	43,330	1,950	5	42,749	1,962	5
Harvey Mudd	4,045	544	13	4,101	594	14
Haverford	4,938	801	16	4,682	877	19
Johns Hopkins	32,231	2,950	9	29,128	2,894	10
Middlebury	9,750	1,547	16	9,230	1,696	18
MIT	21,312	1,410	7	21,708	1,464	7
NYU	76,919	12,307	16	75,037	15,722	19
UNC – Chapel Hill	44,784			43,384	4,205	10
Notre Dame	22,200	3,410	15	20,370	3,586	18
Northeastern	62,000	11.160	18	62,000	11,780	19
Northwestern	40,579	3,612	9	40,425	3,392	8
Pomona		726		10,245	707	7
Princeton	32,804	1,895	6	35,370	1,941	5
Stanford		2,057		47,450	2,040	4
Swarthmore	11,400	995	9	10,749	980	9
Tufts	22,766	3,324	15	21,502	3,139	15
UC – Berkeley	87,353			89,294	13,483	30
UC – Davis	78,063			77,727	32,179	41
UC – Irvine	95,556			94,866	27,344	29
UC – Los Angeles	111,266			113,409	16,020	14
UC – San Diego	99,112			97,899	29,577	30
UC – Santa Barbara	93,423			92,017	29,782	32
U of Pennsylvania	44,960	3,345	7	44,482	3,371	8
USC	66,000	7,250	11	64,256	8,258	13
Virginia	40,869	9,725	24	37,222	9,850	26
Vanderbilt	32,967	2,088	6	30,146	2,199	7
Vassar	8,961	2,098	23	8,312	1,996	24
Washington USTL	25,400	3,556	14	31,300	4,695	15
Wellesley	6,488	1,298	20	6,670	1,267	19
Wesleyan	13,358	2,114	16	12,788
Williams	9,715	1,206	12	9,559	1,163	12
William & Mary	14,670	5,000	34
Yale	36,843	2,176	6	35,306	2,229	6

The school with the largest point decline in admission rate from 2018 to 2019 was at Emory (Oxford), which fell from 26% in 2018 to 20% this year. Institutions with noteworthy declines in percentage drops include Boston University with an 18% drop, Colby with 23%, Haverford with 16%, NYU with 16%, Notre Dame with 17%, and USC with an 18% decline.

Not so long ago, there were no schools with an admissions rate below 10%. However, in recent years, the “10% or Less Club” has grown every year. This year’s club set a record at 17 members. It incudes Bowdoin at 9%, Brown 7%, Chicago 6%, Columbia 5%, Dartmouth 8%, Duke 7%, Harvard 5%, Johns Hopkins 9%, MIT 7%, Northwestern 9%, Princeton 6%, Swarthmore 9%, UPenn 7%, Vanderbilt 6%, and Yale 6%. Neither Stanford nor Pomona reported an admission rate for 2019 but the former disclosed that it admitted 2,057 applicants and the latter reported 726, about the same as last year in both cases, so we can assume that their rates were 5% and 7%, respectively. There were also a few near misses reporting a rate of 11%, including Amherst, Barnard, Cornell, and USC. Many of the schools named above set all-time school records for low admissions in 2019.

As we’ve noted, you shouldn’t rely too heavily on comparative admissions rates in selecting schools to which to apply. It’s only a single facet of a comprehensive portrait of a school. Your IvySelect college admissions consultant will work with you to develop a balanced list of 12 or 13 institutions that fit your unique set of needs, preferences, talents, and objectives. This list may include several of the most exclusive schools in the country, but, if so, they will not have been targeted solely for their prestigious brand. They’ll be chosen for the extent to which they satisfy your personal requirements.