2018 Admission Rates

Is getting into college becoming harder?

- Dave Bergman

The results from the 2017-18 admissions cycle are still rolling in, but the data available thus far sends one very clear message: Acceptance rates at highly-selective colleges are dwindling. Let’s examine this.

Ivy League Results

The numbers at Ivy League schools were already so miniscule that this year’s decreases can only be expressed with decimals. Princeton University fell from 6.1 percent to 5.5 percent; the University of Pennsylvania admitted just 8.4 percent in 2018 versus 9.1 percent in 2017, and Harvard University said yes to only 4.6 percent of applicants after welcoming 5.2 percent in 2017. After a slight bump in 2017 due to increasing the number of students on campus, Yale University’s arrow turned downward once again with a 6.3 percent acceptance rate. Brown and Columbia universities’ rates shrunk as well — from 8.3 percent to 7.2 percent, and 5.8 percent to 5.5 percent, respectively.

Dartmouth University shed a double-digit acceptance rate in 2017, falling to 8.7 percent. Cornell University stayed in double digits, but only by a hair. The university welcomed 10.3 percent of applicants in 2018, compared to 12.5 percent in 2017.

Other Elite Institutions