Acceptance Rates at Top Universities

The year of the dragon and millennial babies proved to be an extremely competitive year for applicants, with most top U.S. universities recording historic low acceptance rates. Below is a snapshot of acceptance rates at some of the more popular top universities compared to 6 years ago.

Ranking^ University Class of 2022# Class of 2016*
1 Princeton 5.5% 9%
2 Harvard 4.6% 7%
3 Yale 6.3% 8%
5 Columbia 5.5% 10%
5 Stanford 4.3% 7%
7 MIT 6.7% 10%
8 Duke 8.0% 16%
8 Penn 8.4% 14%
11 Dartmouth 8.7% 12%
12 Northwestern 8.4% 23%
14 Brown 7.2% 9%
15 Cornell 10.3% 18%
20 UC Berkeley 17.2% (2021)^ 22%
23 USC 13.0% 24%
24 UCLA 16.1% (2021)^ 23%
27 Tufts 19.0% 24%
31 Boston College 29.0% 31%
36 NYU 19.0% 38%
39 Boston U 22.0% 58%
39 Northeastern 19.0% 38%
^US News & World Report ‘s Best Colleges 2017
*US News & World Report ‘s Best Colleges 2012
#University websites