"Harvard College accepted 3.19 percent of applicants to its Class of 2026 — the lowest rate in the school’s history — as it saw a record high number of candidates apply for the second straight year.
"A total of 1,214 students received offers of admission at 7 p.m. on Thursday, joining the 740 students who were accepted via early admission in December. The acceptance rate is down from the 3.43 percent of students admitted to the Class of 2025 last year — which marked the previous record-low.
“Applications to the College jumped by almost 7 percent, with 61,220 students submitting applications to the school, compared to 57,435 last year.”
Publication of these extremely discouraging stats makes it pretty clear, if you’re not in a category that Harvard wants in order to “shape” its class via “holistic” admissions, you probably shouldn’t bother applying. That means if you’re not URM, a recruited athlete, have truly extraordinary, nationally or internationally recognized EC achievement, or the child of a wealthy and continuing huge donor, maybe also from “flyover” country, probably not worth applying.
Some of this may change after the supreme court’s expected ruling this fall, I think. But no one really knows.
Withholding this data out of a belief that it will actually cause a cooling of admissions fervor is so dumb that it causes me physical pain. Schools should be publishing and publicizing as much admissions data as possible, not less.
I hear you. On the other hand, why is the acceptance rate so low?
It is purely a function of the explosion in applications. I doubt it is caused by an explosion in the number of great candidates because US high school population demographics have and will continue to shrink.
There is some evidence that at the most academically able end of the spectrum in the US, there has been a slow and steady improvement in test scores, grades, and coursework rigor over time. Does this mean there has been an increase in the numbers of good fit candidates for Harvard and other similar schools? I have my doubts. Relative to others within this group, little has changed comparatively since it is a rising tide that lifts all boats.
So, my hunch is that the overall population of good fit candidates has changed little in the last five, ten, or twenty years. That’s what I feel when I interview candidates. It seems to me that the application numbers have exploded because:
The type of student who would have applied to two or three reach schools twenty years ago now apply to five or ten, creating a kind of randomized assignment condition among the most selective schools
The educational/extracurricular/credential/counseling/aspirational machinery is creating many more students who feel that they are a good fit when in comparison to more able peers (who have also seen steady improvement over the years) they might not be
Test optional has recently widened the base of the application pyramid dramatically
A genuine new emphasis on first generation and low income applicants, combined with vast new resources for financial aid, had increased the pool of such applicants who are well qualified, crowding out all other categories since the numbers of available seats have changed little in the last twenty years
I am probably missing something else, but I think this explains a lot.
It’s a no-win proposition for these schools. They will get criticized either way. But, if they don’t publish they will only get criticized in forums like CC. If they publicize, they get criticized in mass media. So, ya
iirc, fewer than 40 were admitted from the waitlist two years ago and none last year. Not even the admissions office knows right now if any waitlist spots will open this year, but the most prudent thing is to treat being waitlisted as a soft rejection and learn to love one of your other choices, which I hope you have.
Publishing of this type of data isn’t going to shed more light on college admissions. Nor is it about discouraging applications. It’s all about bragging rights. Nothing new, or useful for future applicants, is in it each and every year. Each new class is the “best” ever, the most “diversified” ever… They could have written these statements even before they receive any applications.
I disagree. It sheds a very useful light, which is: “The odds of a typical applicant being admitted are very low, so unless you are atypical in a way that fits, you might consider setting your sights on a different school.”
Isnt that already known? Harvard, and its peers with sub 5% admit rates, are highly unlikely for all. Whether the admit rate was 4.6 or 3.1 percent doesnt matter.
The reason I am asking is very few kids got into multiple colleges, where many got waitlisted and most got rejected. So hoping to see more waitlist movement.
Yes, I am fortunate to have good options.
What data is there? With test optional, those without spectacular scores don’t submit them. Everyone is going to have great grades, whether they’re coming from an inner city underperforming high school, or a demanding suburban high school, or a famous prep school. How do they quantify in a data set the kid who starred on Broadway, or danced with a major national company, or won two international instrumental performance competitions, or starred in a long running sitcom? With test optional, the hard data days are over. Nowadays, they fill the class with high-achieving URMs, legacies, donor kids, etc, throw in some first gen to colleges, take the best student or two from various countries across the world, and maybe top it off with a few extraordinary high achievers who don’t fit one of the groups they’re trying to fill to “balance” the class. It’s no longer that straight A’s with the most rigor plus perfect standardized test scores might not get you in. Now it probably won’t get you in, even if you have some very nice ECs. You’re only getting in if you have what they want to “shape” their class.
Penn and Cornell also decided not to publish this year, so a partial list of highly selective colleges not releasing admit rate press releases includes Caltech, Stanford, Princeton, Penn, and Cornell. The number applied and number admitted will be listed in the federal database (CDS, IPEDS, …) and likely on their website at some point in the future, but there are no press releases talking about the specific admit rate numbers.
The Harvard lawsuit sample provided much detail about the admission system as implemented many years before test optional. During this period straight A’s plus perfect standardized test scores was not enough to get you in. The stats you are describing sounds like a 1-2 academic rating. The overall admit rate for applicants with a 1-2 academic rating was ~14% compared to overall admit rate of ~7% for all applicants.
Instead the lawsuit describes a more complex admission system that considers a variety of other factors. ECs appeared to be given similar weighting to Academic rating (stats). Personal appeared to be given slightly higher weighting than Academic (stats). LORs may have been most influential of all in decisions even though they did not have as high a weighting because they were less correlated that some of the criteria, resulting in more likely to be influential. Essays and interviews were also influential, among other factors, including hooks.
There are some colleges that primarily admit by stats and for which high stats nearly guarantees admission, but this doesn’t describe Harvard. Harvard wasn’t that way before test optional and isn’t that way today.
Let it go. Healthiest to just move on. Many of us have stories of having not gotten into the school we really wanted, and finding that the school we wound up at was the perfect school for us. I was heartbroken over my rejection from the Ivy I wanted… but the Ivy I wound up at was clearly the better match for me.
Of course, no way I would have gotten into any T20 school!