Harvard Accepts 3.59% Of Applicants, Highest Rate In 4 Years

This year’s Ivy League acceptance rates continue to reflect today’s competitive landscape of higher education but there are signs of easing. Harvard University accepted 3.59% of applicants for the Class of 2028, its highest acceptance rate in four years, according to the student-run Harvard Crimson.

This compares with last year’s 3.41% for the Class of 2027 and a 3.19% acceptance rate the year before, which was a record low.

Despite the slight widening of Harvard’s acceptance rate, student interest in highly-ranked universities remained robust. Yale University accepted 3.7% of applicants, its lowest rate ever, according to Yale News.

“There’s never been more demand for the top-50 most recognizable universities, universities where people feel a life-changing education is at hand,” says Hafeez Lakhani, Founder of Lakhani Coaching. “The demand for that is really off the charts.”

Elsewhere, Brown University reported an acceptance rate of 5.2% for the Class of 2028, its third-lowest acceptance rate, according to the student-run Brown Daily Herald. The University of Pennsylvania said it had received the largest applicant pool in the school’s history but did not immediately share its acceptance rate. Cornell, too, did not immediately share details.

“Students are still very interested in applying to the Ivies as well as other top-20 and top-50 colleges,” says Aaron Andrikopoulos, Co-Founder of AJ Tutoring.

“They still see a lot of value in the name brand of those colleges and the doors that might open in the future, as well as the educational opportunities and the chance to be surrounded by a cohort of similarly motivated students,” he adds.

However, while the Ivy League admission rates remain very competitive, experts note that some are wider than they’ve been in recent years. They say a number of factors are likely contributing, chief among them the so-called “enrollment cliff” that is expected to become increasingly apparent in 2025, when the number of high school graduates declines. This fall stems from a drop in birthrates following the 2008 global recession due to concerns over finances.

Earlier, Brown had reported that a total of 48,881 students applied to its Class of 2028, marking a 5% decline from last year, according to the Brown Daily Herald.

“The population in the high school seniors’ age bracket applying to colleges is going to decline, so that might increase admission rates slightly,” says Connie Livingston, Head of College Counseling at edtech company Empowerly and a former admissions officer at Brown University. However, she adds that “we may see a one or two percent increase, nothing very dramatic. I think the numbers of highly qualified students will remain constant.”

The number of applicants to highly-ranked universities may decline, too, due to some schools reinstating SAT/ACT submission requirements. Among them are Dartmouth College, Brown University and the University of Texas at Austin. Yale University has a new flexible testing policy that requires students to submit scores with their applications, although the university will accept Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate exam scores in lieu of the ACT or SAT.

Some universities cited Opportunity Insights research that found SAT and ACT scores have substantive predictive power for academic success in college.

In making its decision to reinstate test requirements, Brown University referred to a report that cited, “Standardized tests provide an important piece of information about the applicant’s performance in the context of the opportunities that were available to them.” For example, a student with scores below the Brown median but at the top of the range of their own school may be a promising candidate for admission but the lack of test scores “removes a piece of evidence that could make a positive difference in the admissions decision,” the report noted.

Harvard has retained its test-optional policies through to the admitted Class of 2030.

Despite this year’s low acceptance rates, it’s important to note that these schools are generally outliers, as most colleges admit many of their applicants. In fact, that average acceptance rate among all ranked colleges that report their admissions information to U.S. News & World Report in 2022 was 71.4% and 37 schools said they accepted all applicants.

However, with regards to high school students aiming for the country’s most highly-ranked universities competition may ease up, at least a little, in the future.

“The demographics are speaking loud and clear,” says Hafeez Lakhani of Lakhani Coaching. “I don’t think we’re going to get to where it’s going to be easy to get into Yale. But I do think we’ve peaked, so to speak, at record low acceptance rates.”