7 of 8 Ivy League Schools Report Lower Acceptance Rates

It was a little more difficult this year to get admitted to an Ivy League school, as tens of thousands of college applicants learned Thursday evening.

Seven of the eight colleges and universities that make up the Ivy League have lowered their acceptance rates since last year. (Dartmouth, as of 6:40 p.m. Thursday, had yet to release its admission statistics. Check back for updates.) The trend to tiptoe toward increased selectivity seems to hold true whether the institution received more or fewer applications than last year.

A word of caution before we crunch the numbers: Although these admission statistics may seem startling, even prohibitive, prospective students and parents would be wise to remember that a quality college education is still within reach. The admission rates at Ivy League and other highly selective institutions are exceptions to the norm; there are more than 2,000 four-year colleges and universities in this country, and many accept a sizable percentage of students who apply.

With that, here are some of the initial acceptance rates we have gathered so far:

Getting into Cornell proved more competitive this year for its record-high applicant pool of 40,006. The university admitted 15.15 percent of those applicants this year, delivering good news to 6,062 students Thursday evening and inviting another 3,146 to join its wait list. Last year, Cornell accepted 6,119, or 16.2 percent, of its applicants.

The overall acceptance rate fell below 7 percent at Columbia this year. The university reviewed 33,531 applicants and rejected or deferred all but 2,311 of them. Only 6.89 percent of the students who hoped to enroll in Columbia’s freshman class this fall were scheduled to receive acceptance notices online Thursday night. Last year, the university accepted 7.4 percent of its applicants.

The acceptance rate at Yale, which fell below 7 percent last year, decreased again this year. Yale received a record 29,610 applications this year. It accepted 6.72 percent of those students, which made Yale more selective than it was last year, when it offered admission to 6.82 percent of its 28,974 applicants. Yale invited 1,001 students to join its wait list this year.

Princeton, which received slightly fewer applications this year, was also more selective. It accepted 7.29 percent of the 26,498 applicants who applied for fall 2013. Last year, the university offered acceptance notices to 7.86 percent of the 26,664 students who applied.

The University of Pennsylvania was also a little more selective with its applicant pool this year. The university received 31,280 applications this year, an uptick from last year’s 31,217. The university decided to admit 12.1 percent of this year’s applicants, compared with 12.32 percent of the applicants last year.

While a vast majority of applicants will be denied admission, thousands of applicants are in limbo on the wait list.

Regular readers of The Choice know that selective colleges are redefining the adjective every year. As we mentioned earlier, there are many more colleges and universities to cover. We have been surveying a range of them about their admission statistics. Stay tuned; we’ll be posting that data soon.

For now, we turn our attention back to the colleges and universities that are announcing their highly anticipated admission decisions. If you are a college applicant, we are very interested to hear your reactions and reflections in our communal kitchen table. Please join the discussion about this year’s admission decisions.