"A record 42,742 students applied for admission to Harvard College’s Class of 2022, an increase of 8.2 percent from the 39,506 applicants for the Class of 2021.
‘Harvard’s revolutionary financial aid initiative (HFAI), begun 15 years ago and enhanced since then, led the way again this year in attracting students of excellence from throughout the nation and around the world,’ said William R. Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid. ‘Applications have doubled since the inception of the program — and each year more and more students are excited to learn that Harvard is open to outstanding students from all economic backgrounds.’" …
Apps seem to be up everywhere as usual, though not everyone has published totals yet for this season. I found it interesting that Early Action apps at Harvard were only up 2% this year https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/12/964-gain-early-admission-to-harvard-college-class-of-2022/, whereas there was a much greater Early app increase at other schools (e.g. Princeton 8%, Brown 10.5%, Yale 12.7%, Dartmouth 13.6%, MIT 13.9%, Cornell 15%, Penn 17%). It’ll be interesting to separate out the RD increases from the totals as they are reported - not sure I calculated correctly, but I got a 9% RD increase for Harvard.
Since Harvard can easily meet full financial need of all applicants, I wonder what would happen with respect to number of applications if everyone was required to apply binding ED.
Or what would happen if tuition was cut drastically.
The math is getting ever more brutal. Last year Harvard accepted 2,056. (Some university sources say 2,037. Some discrepancy here but for purposes of rough estimations it doesn’t matter). Given the unexpectedly high yield, we can expect Harvard admissions to be more conservative in this year’s RD round. Let’s say they take 2,000 total. Remove the 964 accepted EA and that leaves about 1,036 RD spots to be filled.
There were 42,742 total apps. Subtract the 6,630 EA and that leaves 36,112 RD apps.
^ Actually, you need to add back the deferred applicants from REA, 74% of 6630, which gives you 41,000 applicants for 1,000 slots. That is roughly 2.4% rate for RD.