13 Colleges With the Lowest Acceptance Rates

There are many factors in selectivity beyond acceptance rate, so looking at acceptance rate alone is a misleading way of comparing selectivity.

One key factor is applicant pool and related admission criteria. Alice Lloyd’s acceptance rate has been questioned, so instead I’ll compare University of Pennsylvania and US Naval Academy. Both colleges had a similar acceptance rate of between 8 and 9% in 2018, and both are highly ranked in USNWR. However, this does not mean they are similarly selective. Instead they have completely different applicant pools and admission criteria, making it silly to compare the two. A particular kid might have great chances at Penn and poor at Navy or vice versa.

The same principle applies when comparing two colleges that are both primarily academic colleges. For example, Caltech and Pomona had a similar acceptance rate and are both smaller colleges in CA that are well ranked in USNWR. However, they have completely different applicant pools and different admission criteria. Most would probably say Caltech is more selective due to Caltech’s self selecting applicant pool. However, Caltech is self selecting towards a particular unique subgroup that is generally high stat stem kids, which isn’t Pomona’s main focus. As such, I’d expect many Caltech admits would be rejected at Pomona due to being an awful fit, including the varied areas of study among other things.

A related factor is the varied degrees of selectivity and admit rate within the college and for different groups applying. For example, in 2018 Cornell’s Dyson School had a 3% admit rate – lower than any college on the list above. However, Cornell’s Hotel School had a much higher 21% admit rate. Just looking at the average admit rate has little to do with the relative admit rate selectivity for a particular group of students within that college.

Cornell Dyson’s admit rate was much higher this year than in 2018 because they doubled the class size in 2019, which brings up another key factor. The widely varying class sizes makes in awkward to draw conclusions from varied admit rates. If all the 4-year colleges in the US suddenly admitted a similar number of students, then the lowest admit rate colleges in that year would probably look something like below. The larger number of applicants means that specific subgroups within those schools are likely extremely selective.

Colleges Receiving Most Applications

  1. UCLA
  2. UCSD
  3. USB
  4. UCI
  5. UCSB

I could list many more issues. It can be interesting to compare admit rates, but I wouldn’t recommend using the relative admit rates for much more than amusement. There are far more accurate ways to gauge relative selectivity. Along the lines of that amusement, the 13 colleges with lowest admit rate as listed in IPEDS most recent year (2017) are below. 5/13 are HYPSM; 3/13 are music/arts conservatories; 1 is a LAC; and 1 is a military school. One common trait all of these varied groups share is they are especially affordable for near median income families. Most have near $0 expected cost to parents for typical near median income families.

Lowest Admit Rate 4-Year Colleges: IPEDS

  1. Curtis – 3%
  2. Harvard/Stanford – 5%
  3. Colburn/Juliard/Princeton – 6%
  4. Columbia/MIT/Yale – 7%
  5. Brown/Caltech/Navy/Pomona – 8%

Curtis and Alice Lloyd are essentially free to attend. Folks should not be surprised there are a lot of applicants for few spots. https://www.bestcollegereviews.org/features/8-colleges-where-students-attend-for-free/

There’re only two purposes to look at acceptance rates. One is to pursue the perceived “prestige” associated with low admit rates. The other is to gauge one’s likelihood of acceptance.

The first one is completely fallacious. Lower admit rate doesn’t mean the school is harder to get in. It only means the acceptance rate is low for the group of students who *choose/i to apply to that school. The comparison is only meaningful if the same or comparable group of students were to apply to multiple schools, and their group-specific acceptance rates were measured. We don’t have that level of data.

The second one would be useful to applicants if we had more data on the underlying applicant pools, stratified by various metrics. That’s the goal worth pursuing, but colleges are unlikely to oblige on their own. Most of them want to encourage students, even those who’re clearly unqualified, to apply, precisely because of the first purpose of lower acceptance rates: the perceived “prestige”. Transparency is not in their interest.

I have a question for you regarding acceptance to Vandy. Our son is a legacy as my wife and 8 other family members graduated from there. He attends the Niche’s “best private HS” in our state of KY. He applied ED1. 3.9GPA, 34 ACT, NMSF and has all the extracurricular stuff/AP classes which I won’t mention. I have told him its a long shot that he gets in but would like your opinion. We did just receive a letter from VU alumni office stating that they are aware our son applied and was a legacy. Plan B is ED2 to Wake Forest.

@ghk4171

When I last checked Vandy 3 years ago, it was the least holistic of the top 20 schools. On our local school’s Naviance scattergrams, there was a clear GPA & SAT demarcation between acceptance, waitlist, and rejection. And that was without legacy, which can only help.

Take a look at current scattergrams from your school if one is available.