Recent Admission Statistics

New York Times Article: "Applications to Colleges are Breaking Records."

2008 Preliminary Statistics

2007 Acceptance Rates for some of the Most Selective Colleges in the U.S.
(Source: U.S. News & World Report America's Best Colleges 2008)

2008 Early Decision Preliminary Statistics:
Based on several sources, more students are sending early decision/early action applications. Here are a few examples:

School
Early Decision / Action Rate

Wesleyan University (CT)

+40%

The George Washington University (DC)

+30%

Duke University (NC) +25%

+25%

MIT (early action)

+25%

Pomona College (CA)

+20%

Stanford University (single choice early action)

+18%

Northwestern University (IL)

+15%

Dartmouth College

+12.5%

Yale University (single choice early action)

+10.4%
 

For more information, read the New York Times article, “Early-Decision Applications Are Up at Colleges Despite the Economy”

Fun Facts about College Admissions

  • In the last 5 years, 7 of the 8 Ivy League schools have reported a decrease in admit rates: Brown by 3%, Columbia by 3%, Cornell by 9%, Dartmouth by 4%, Harvard by 2%, UPenn by 8%, and Yale by 6%.
  • Of the approximately 3,487 students who applied Early Decision to UPenn's Class of 2009, about 15% (523 students) were sons or daughters of Penn alumni (also known as "legacies"). Roughly 48.6% of the 523 were admitted.
  • A record 5,822 students applied for the 539 spots in Williams College's Class of 2009.
  • In 2005, Harvard received the highest number of applications in the university's history-22,796-and reported a record low admit rate of 9.1%.
  • 32% of Tufts' Class of 2009, 30% of Columbia's Class of 2009, and 29.3% of NYU's Class of 2009 were accepted in the Early Decision round.
  • The same percentage of Georgetown's Class of 2009 was admitted through Early Action as it was Regular Admission: 22%.
  • Tufts' Class of 2009, whose SAT profile is 24 points higher than the Class of 2008, includes 49 National Merit Scholars.
  • 68% of the valedictorians who applied to Brown's Class of 2009 were denied admission.