Early Decision Acceptance Rate for Lehigh University

Does anyone know what the Early Decision acceptance rate is for Lehigh University, as I cannot find it anywhere. Thanks!

For the class of 2019 it was 44%.

http://www1.lehigh.edu/admissions/undergrad/profile

@Much2learn Do you know what the class of 2020 was? Because I saw somewhere that for the class of 2018 it was 63%, and I highly doubt that they dropped all the way to 44%. Therefore I assume the class of 2020 would be low 60’s as well. Am I right?

I would assume it would most likely be similar to the prior year. In any event there is nothing you can do to change the ED acceptance rate so best to put your time and effort in things that are under your control (ex. your application).

The 44% is not the ED accept rate, is it the percentage of the class filled by ED applicants. The accept rate should be in the common data set

Class Of 2019 ED acceptance rate was 58.2% according to CDS. 582 out of 999 accepted

I can’t find an announcement, but I would guess that the 2020 rate was just slightly lower than 2019, maybe around 55%. Lehigh’s overall acceptance rate was 25.5% for the Class of 2020 (3,420 out of 13,408 = 25.5%), and the overall rate was 30% in 2019.

In any case, the ED rate is quite high, so if your STATs are in line, you have an excellent chance of being admitted. Good luck!

@wisteria100 Thanks, that was what I was looking for. Do you think the ED acceptance rate will remain the same for the 2021 class?

@studyhard13
I think most colleges target a specific % of the class that they want to fill at ED. So assume Lehigh will want to fill 40-45% Of the total class with ED kids. The accept rate will depend on the number of applications they receive. For my school, looking at naviance, the ED accepts had lower scores than the RD kids

@studyhard13 “Do you think the ED acceptance rate will remain the same for the 2021 class?”

Yes, their ED acceptance rate will remain high. Accepting a lot of the incoming class ED helps Lehigh manage admissions, raises their yield, improves their overall acceptance rate, and attracts more good students to Lehigh.

Having said that, it is important to remember that admissions it is not random. Be sure that your gpa is good, your course rigor is good, and your ACT/SAT is high. Currently, the middle 50 percent of Lehigh students have an ACT score of 30-33. The higher you can get in that range, the better. For example, an applicant that has a 24 on the ACT will have a very low chance of being admitted whether it is ED or regular. Although I haven’t seen statistics on it from Lehigh, I would bet that the average ED acceptance rate climbs for every additional ACT point. Focus on submitting the best application you can, and you can really improve your odds.

@Much2learn Thanks for your input. I have a 29 on my ACT; therefore, I thought if I applied ED I would then have a better chance as there range is from 30-33. Would this be true?

@wisteria100 Yeah, I agree. On naviance from my school the RD is like a 30 ACT and 3.9 GPA, but ED was 27 ACT aand 3.6 GPA. So I guess that they accept applicants with lower scores than the regular decision pool, as Lehigh loves applicants who display interest, and ED is a very good way of showing that. Is this true?

@studyhard13 “I have a 29 on my ACT; therefore, I thought if I applied ED I would then have a better chance as there range is from 30-33. Would this be true?”

Yes, I think it will improve your odds. However, if you were my kid, and you really wanted to attend Lehigh, I would recommend that get you an online tutor once or twice a week this summer and practice hard on the areas of the ACT where you can improve the most easily. Lehigh’s method is, “the highest score in each category for the SAT and/or ACT will be used regardless of the test date.” That means that they will take the higher score for any section you improve compared to your prior test. You are currently on the low end of the range. If you can improve your score by even a point or two higher, when combined with your prior score, it will further improve your odds.

@studyhard13. That is exactly what I see on my naviance. Unhooked ED admits at 27-28 and RD admits at 30+
Some schools, like BC and Georgetown, you need higher stats at EA, but at Lehigh that doesn’t seem to be the case. I would say at most schools though there isn’t much difference

@wisteria100 So do you think, with my 29 ACT I have a good chance of being admitted ONLY if I apply ED?

@Studyhard “On naviance from my school the RD is like a 30 ACT and 3.9 GPA, but ED was 27 ACT aand 3.6 GPA. So I guess that they accept applicants with lower scores than the regular decision pool, as Lehigh loves applicants who display interest, and ED is a very good way of showing that. Is this true?”

Be careful with what you assume about that. The ED rate includes many athletes, URM applicants, and legacy applicants, and hooked applicants will take up a large percentage of the places with scores that are below the middle 50%. If you are unhooked, the score you will need is likely to be higher. @wisteria100 is correct that it will depend on the targeted rate and the number of applicants, but they also adjust it to reflect the quality of the ED applicants. For example, if they have more high quality ED applicants than they have had in the past, then they will tend to raise the percentage a little.

Again, I think you have a decent chance with a 29 ACT, but a slightly higher score would help those odds, especially if they continue to have rising numbers of applicants. That is because they have a 30-33 middle 50% now, and they are likely to want to make sure that that middle 50% ACT range does not fall. If they take too many 29’s and the middle 50% shifts to 29-33 or 29-32, that could make them look less attractive to future applicants. Once an applicant is in the current range, that is less of a concern.

@Much2learn I went to an admission tour and information session at Lehigh in May, and they said that there range was 29-32 for 2020. So now, that I am in the range does this make it easier for me to be admitted if I apply ED? Thanks in advance.

I think that you have a solid chance with a 29 ACT, but that is just my opinion.

The Lehigh website says the middle 50% was 30-33 for the class of 2019 on this URL: http://www1.lehigh.edu/admissions/undergrad/profile. However, a little more detailed look at the math suggests to me that that it was actually 29 - 32, as you said. Keep in mind when you look at Naviance, that it is a 5 year look at the data, and Lehigh has had a significant shift in selectivity in just the last 2 years, so you have to be careful with that information. In the 2019 class only 20% of admitted student had an ACT score below 29 (see the link) and I suspect that most of them are hooked applicants.

If your gpa, interview and essays are solid, there is a good chance that you be admitted with a 29 ACT. Still, with a rising applicant pool, why take the chance?

With a modest/reasonable effort and superscoring, you should have an excellent chance to improve to a 30 or 31 ACT in the fall, and that should give you a good chance for Lehigh ED, even if the applicant pool is a larger and stronger this year. It is obviously your decision, but I would want to improve my odds if it were me.