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The biggest news in the Ivies for the 2004 season was the sizeable drop in admission rates at Yale and Stanford. It's no coincidence that both of these schools changed their early admission policies from early decision (binding) to early action (non-binding). Since many students found themselves able to apply to Yale or Stanford early action without making a commitment (and therefore reserving the right to collect acceptance letters from schools like Harvard and Princeton during the regular admission round), they made the choice to apply early driving up both schools’ numbers.
Yale broke records by receiving close to 20,000 applications, accepting a mere 9.9% of them: 1950 students. As a result of Yale's and Stanford's rise in early applications, Harvard’s and Princeton's number of applicants dropped slightly and they were able to accept a few more students: Harvard's admission rate was 10.3% (up from their lowest ever of 9.8% the year before) while Princeton's admission rate was 11.9%, (up slightly from 9.9% the year before). In other Ivy news, Dartmouth experienced a big rise in average SAT scores: the average verbal jumped from a 717 to a 726 while the average math score jumped from 725 to 731. They accepted 18.3% of their applicants, up from 17.5% the year before. Brown experienced a slight overall increase in the number of applications admitting 15.8% (up from 14.9% the year before), Columbia was slightly more selective accepting 10.5% (down from 10.8% the year before). Penn's acceptance rate was 21% and Cornell's was 28.7%, the highest in the Ivy League.
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Early Action
Brown accepted 538 of 1920
early applicants for an acceptance rate of 28%.
Regular Decision/Overall
For regular decision. Brown accepted 14% of its applicants
making the overall acceptance rate 15.8%
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Cornell reports that its early decision acceptance rate
is not very different from its regular decision rate. In Cornell's
case, students should compare the acceptance rates at the
particular college to which they are applying. Most people
think of the Arts and Sciences when they mention Cornell,
but there is also the School of Engineering, Human Ecology,
Agriculture and Life Sciences, etc... Cornell's overall admit
rate was 28.7% for the College of Arts and Sciences.
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Early Decision
Dartmouth accepted 30% of
the 1278 early applicants representing 35% of the class.
Unlike most of the Ivies, Dartmouth now accepts roughly a
third of its early class, defers a third and rejects a third.
Regular Decision/Overall
Dartmouth accepted 16.8% of the 10,000 regular applicants,
dropping the overall acceptance rate to a very low 18.3%.
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Early Action
(Single action early action, meaning if you apply early action
to Harvard, you cannot apply to any other schools under other
early programs.)
906 students accepted out of roughly 4000, 23% acceptance
rate. The majority of the rest were deferred, although 165
students were rejected outright.
Applications were down more than 47% thanks to the changes
in early policies at Yale and Stanford.
Regular Decision/Overall
Of almost 20,000 total applicants, Harvard accepted 2029 or
9.7% regular decision. The overall admission rate for both
early and regular was 10.3%.
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Early Decision
Penn does not release exact
early decision numbers for its various schools which include
the College of Arts and Sciences, The School of Engineering,
The Wharton School, The Nursing School and several joint programs
like the Jerome Fisher School that combines business and engineering.
Regular Decision
The regular decision acceptance rate at the College of Arts
and Sciences was 17%, 21% overall.
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Early Decision
32% of the 1815 students
who applied were accepted early decision to Princeton. That
is a much higher acceptance rate than usual since Princeton's
numbers dropped thanks to the rise at Yale and Stanford. Close
to half of the incoming class positions were filled by early
acceptances.
Regular Decision/Overall
Because so many spaces were taken up with early decision acceptances,
the regular decision acceptance rate was only 8.8% while the
overall acceptance rate was 11.9%.
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Early Action
(Single action early action, meaning if you apply early action
to Yale, you cannot apply to any other schools under other
early programs.)
Applicants for early action were up an astounding 52.4% from
last year because of the switch from early decision to early
action (non-binding). Close to 4000 applied, only 670 were
accepted for a 16.8% acceptance rate.
Regular Decision/Overall
Only 9.9% overall of the roughly 20,000 applicants were accepted
because of the large rise in early applicants.
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Statistics by Christian Termont at Economics of Education Research Associates |
