On March 26, 2026, Brown announced that 47,937 students had applied for the Class of 2030, roughly 5,200 more than the year before. The increase followed a sharp drop. In the 2024-25 cycle, the first after Brown restored its SAT and ACT requirement, applications fell 12.5 percent, from 48,904 to 42,774, according to Brown’s Common Data Set. Brown’s admissions office has since updated its figures. As of September 2026, it reports 47,944 applications to the Class of 2030, 2,687 students admitted, an acceptance rate of 5.6 percent, and 1,723 first-year students.
Brown reinstated testing a year ahead of Penn, which saw its own applications fall by about 15 percent in its first test-required cycle. Brown’s second test-required year is the first public look at what comes after that first drop. Brown’s announcements did not give a reason for either change.
This profile draws on Brown’s Common Data Set filings from the 2019-20 through 2025-26 editions, which cover the classes that entered from Fall 2019 to Fall 2025. The 2025-26 edition is the most current available and the first since Fall 2020 to describe a class that was required to submit scores. Earlier editions are also collected in the College Transitions Common Data Set repository. Figures for the Class of 2030 come from Brown’s admissions statistics page, its March announcement and The Brown Daily Herald. Each number below names its year, and rates describe applicant pools rather than the odds facing any one student.
What Happened When Brown Brought Back the SAT?
Figure 1 sorts eight entering classes by the testing policy each one faced. When Brown dropped its requirement for the Fall 2021 class, applications rose 26.6 percent in a single cycle, from 36,793 to 46,568, and peaked at 51,316 for Fall 2023. When the requirement returned for Fall 2025, the pool fell back to 42,774. It recovered to 47,944 a year later, still below every test-optional year except the first.
Figure 1. First-year applications by testing policy, Fall 2019 to Fall 2026. Sources: Brown Common Data Set, item C1 (Fall 2019 to Fall 2025); Brown Admission, figures as of September 2026 (Fall 2026).
The timing lines up with the policy, but timing alone does not establish cause. The Fall 2025 cycle also brought a second change, since Brown stopped considering international applicants’ ability to pay starting with that class.
The size of the entering class barely moved through any of it. Brown enrolled between 1,662 and 1,751 first-years in every year from Fall 2019 to Fall 2025, and its admissions page lists 1,723 first-year students for Fall 2026, so a smaller pool showed up mostly as a higher admit rate. The more unusual Fall 2025 figure is the waitlist. Brown’s Common Data Set reports 295 students admitted from the waitlist that year, the most in any year shown and 10.9 percent of all Fall 2025 admits. Brown reported 118 the year before, and 15 for Fall 2022. Its filings for these years do not report how many students were offered a waitlist spot or accepted one, so the figures cannot be turned into a waitlist admit rate, and one large year is not a pattern.
| Class | Applied | Admits | Rate | Enrolled | From waitlist | ED applied | ED admits | ED rate |
| Fall 2019 | 38,674 | 2,733 | 7.1% | 1,662 | 127 | 4,230 | 769 | 18.2% |
| Fall 2020 | 36,793 | 2,822 | 7.7% | 1,751 | 194 | 4,549 | 800 | 17.6% |
| Fall 2021 | 46,568 | 2,568 | 5.5% | 1,705 | 28 | 5,541 | 884 | 16.0% |
| Fall 2022 | 50,649 | 2,562 | 5.1% | 1,717 | 15 | 6,146 | 896 | 14.6% |
| Fall 2023 | 51,316 | 2,686 | 5.2% | 1,695 | 73 | 6,787 | 884 | 13.0% |
| Fall 2024 | 48,904 | 2,638 | 5.4% | 1,719 | 118 | 6,251 | 898 | 14.4% |
| Fall 2025 | 42,774 | 2,710 | 6.3% | 1,719 | 295 | 5,062 | 907 | 17.9% |
| Fall 2026 | 47,944 | 2,687 | 5.6% | 1,723 | – | 5,406 (March) | 890 (March) | 16.5% (March) |
Table 1. Brown first-year admissions, Fall 2019 to Fall 2026. Source: Brown Common Data Set, items C1, C2 and C21 (Fall 2019 to Fall 2025); Fall 2026 applications, admits, rate and enrollment from Brown Admission (as of September 2026), and Fall 2026 early decision figures from Brown’s March 2026 announcement and The Brown Daily Herald. Fall 2019 to Fall 2025 admit counts include waitlist admits. Rates computed by College Transitions.
Brown’s counts for a given class change over the year, so the source and date behind each figure make a difference. Brown’s March announcements report students admitted to that point. Its Common Data Set, filed later, reports final counts that include waitlist admits. For the Class of 2029, Brown announced 42,765 applicants and 2,418 admits in March 2025, while the Common Data Set reports 42,774 and 2,710. Brown’s December 2024 early decision release reported 906 admits from 5,048 applicants, an editor’s note later revised those figures to 907 and 5,055, and the Common Data Set lists 907 and 5,062. Brown does not reconcile these versions, and the 292-student gap between the March and final admit counts does not exactly match the 295 waitlist admits. This article uses Common Data Set counts for Fall 2019 to Fall 2025 and Brown’s September 2026 figures for Fall 2026, which have not yet appeared in a Common Data Set filing.
How Much of the Class Does Early Decision Fill?
Brown accepts binding early decision applications through November 1. In each year from Fall 2021 through Fall 2025, its early decision admits equaled 52 to 53 percent of the entering class size, up from about 46 percent in Fall 2019 and Fall 2020. That ratio compares two counts and is not exactly the share of enrolled students who were admitted early, but it means the regular round fills slightly less than half the class.
Figure 2. Admit rate for early decision applicants and for all other applicants, Fall 2019 to Fall 2026. Sources: Brown Common Data Set, items C1 and C21; Brown University News and The Brown Daily Herald (Fall 2026). Non-ED rates computed by College Transitions.
Since Fall 2021, the early decision admit rate has run between 3.2 and 4.2 times the rate for everyone else. The non-ED rate shown for Fall 2019 to Fall 2025 was computed by subtracting early decision applicants and admits from the totals, so it includes waitlist admits. For the Class of 2030, the March figures put the regular decision rate at 3.94 percent of 42,531 applicants, according to The Brown Daily Herald, against 16.5 percent of 5,406 early applicants. The Herald put the prior year’s regular decision rate at 4 percent. Brown’s September figures list 889 early decision admits, one fewer than announced in March, and do not give a final early applicant count.
The first test-required year moved the early rate more than any other. Early decision applications fell 19 percent, from 6,251 to 5,062, while Brown admitted 907 early applicants, nine more than the year before. The early rate rose from 14.4 percent to 17.9 percent. These figures describe pools, and the Common Data Set does not say how many recruited athletes or other prioritized applicants each pool contains.
What Does Brown Cost After Aid?
Brown’s first-year billed charges for 2026-27 total $97,116, covering tuition of $74,568, fees of $3,084, housing and food. Adding a standard personal expense allowance brings Brown’s published estimate to $99,994. That is a standard figure rather than every student’s full cost of attendance. Brown’s aid office adds a travel allowance based on each student’s home address, and adds a charge for Brown’s health insurance plan for students who do not waive it. Books and required course materials are covered through Brown’s Book/Course Materials Support program, which the office values at $1,300 a year. The Boston Globe reported that Brown’s governing board approved a 4 percent tuition increase for the year.
Brown’s filings report meeting 100 percent of need for first-years with need in every year from Fall 2021 to Fall 2025, and the 2025-26 filing lists just three first-years receiving institutional non-need-based grants. For Fall 2025, 1,150 of 1,750 full-time first-years applied for need-based aid, 882 were found to have need, and 860 received a need-based grant averaging $68,640. Families that did not apply, or applied and showed no need, pay the full bill less any outside scholarships.
Figure 3. First-year billed charges and the average need-based grant for first-years awarded one, 2023-24 to 2025-26. Source: Brown Common Data Set, items G1 and H2. A comparison of two averages, not a net price estimate.
For 2025-26, the average need-based grant equaled 73.8 percent of that year’s $93,064 first-year bill, nearly the same proportion as the year before. That sets an average for one group against a standard charge, so it does not mean a typical aid recipient pays the other 26 percent. Individual grants range from small awards to the full cost.
| Entering class | Full-time first-years | Applied for aid | Found to have need | Share with need | Average aid package | Average need-based grant | Need met |
| Fall 2021 | 1,705 | 947 | 770 | 45.2% | $59,749 | $57,351 | 100% |
| Fall 2022 | 1,717 | 1,095 | 868 | 50.6% | $62,234 | $59,928 | 100% |
| Fall 2023 | 1,695 | 1,122 | 879 | 51.9% | $67,872 | $63,523 | 100% |
| Fall 2024 | 1,719 | 1,083 | 829 | 48.2% | $68,926 | $65,370 | 100% |
| Fall 2025 | 1,750 | 1,150 | 882 | 50.4% | $72,368 | $68,640 | 100% |
Table 2. Need-based aid for first-time, full-time first-years, Fall 2021 to Fall 2025. Source: Brown Common Data Set, item H2. Shares computed by College Transitions.
Two published policies set the floors. Under the Brown Promise, in place since 2018-19, Brown replaced the loans it used to package into aid offers with scholarship funds. Brown also states that its aid covers full tuition for families earning $125,000 or less with typical assets, and covers all expenses, including tuition, housing, food and books, for families earning less than $60,000 with typical assets. The Boston Globe’s February 2026 report on 2026-27 tuition described the same two thresholds. A family’s own figure comes from Brown’s cost estimators and calculators, not from these averages.
Why Did Brown’s SAT Range Drop?
Brown’s first test-required class reported lower SAT scores than the test-optional classes before it. The middle half of Fall 2025 first-years who submitted the SAT scored 1470 to 1550, with a median of 1520. A year earlier the range was 1510 to 1560 and the median 1540. The bottom of the range fell 40 points while the top fell 10.
Figure 4. Middle 50 percent SAT composite range of enrolled first-years who submitted scores, and the share who submitted, Fall 2020 to Fall 2025. Source: Brown Common Data Set, item C9.
The likeliest contributor is who reported scores. In the test-optional years, 51 to 61 percent of first-years submitted SAT scores, and students with lower scores could choose not to send them. For Fall 2025, 77 percent submitted the SAT and 28 percent the ACT. Those shares overlap, since some students sent both, so at least 77 percent of the class submitted a test, and the SAT range covers the 77 percent who sent the SAT. Changes in who was admitted and who enrolled may also have moved the range, and the Common Data Set cannot separate the two effects. The Fall 2025 range resembles Fall 2020, the last class admitted under the old requirement, when 70 percent submitted the SAT and the middle half scored 1440 to 1550.
| Class | Testing | Sent SAT | Sent ACT | SAT middle 50% | Median | ACT middle 50% | Top tenth | Rank reported |
| Fall 2020 | Required | 70% | 43% | 1440–1550 | – | 33–35 | 98.7% | 23.0% |
| Fall 2021 | Optional | 51% | 30% | 1470–1550 | – | 33–35 | 91% | 22.5% |
| Fall 2022 | Optional | 54% | 27% | 1500–1560 | 1530 | 34–36 | 93% | 22.2% |
| Fall 2023 | Optional | 54% | 22% | 1510–1560 | 1540 | 34–35 | 92% | 28.0% |
| Fall 2024 | Optional | 61% | 24% | 1510–1560 | 1540 | 34–35 | 89% | 30.6% |
| Fall 2025 | Required | 77% | 28% | 1470–1550 | 1520 | 33–35 | 93% | 29.3% |
Table 3. Testing profile of enrolled first-years, Fall 2020 to Fall 2025. Source: Brown Common Data Set, items C9 and C10. Score ranges are 25th to 75th percentiles for students who submitted each test; submission shares overlap because students could submit both. The top-tenth share covers only students whose schools reported class rank, shown in the last column.
For applicants, the Fall 2025 range is the more useful benchmark, because it draws on a larger share of the class than any test-optional year. Brown’s admissions page reports the same 1470 to 1550 middle range for students admitted to the Class of 2030 who submitted the SAT, a figure that describes admitted students rather than enrolled ones. Brown has said it reads scores in the context of each applicant’s background and exempts students who cannot test.
Where Do Brown’s Applicants Come From?
Brown’s recent filings break applications down by residency. International students sent 9,861 applications for Fall 2025, 23 percent of the pool, and received 404 admits, or 4.1 percent. That was the first class for which Brown was need-blind for international applicants, meaning it no longer considered their ability to pay. International applications still fell 9.7 percent that year, smaller than the 13.5 percent drop from other U.S. states. Brown reported a 16 percent rise in international applicants for the Class of 2030.
| Residency | Fall 2024 applied | Fall 2024 admitted | Fall 2024 rate | Fall 2025 applied | Fall 2025 admitted | Fall 2025 rate |
| Rhode Island | 591 | 59 | 10.0% | 559 | 63 | 11.3% |
| Other U.S. states | 37,382 | 2,103 | 5.6% | 32,351 | 2,243 | 6.9% |
| International | 10,919 | 475 | 4.4% | 9,861 | 404 | 4.1% |
| Total | 48,904 | 2,638 | 5.4% | 42,774 | 2,710 | 6.3% |
Table 4. Brown applications and admits by residency, Fall 2024 and Fall 2025. Source: Brown Common Data Set 2024-25 and 2025-26, item C1. Totals include a few applicants with unknown residency. Rates computed by College Transitions.
Rhode Island residents were admitted at 11.3 percent for Fall 2025, but the pool is small, 559 applicants, and the filings do not describe who is in it. As with the early decision figures, these are pool-level benchmarks rather than evidence of a residency preference.
Two specialized programs admit students through their own selection. Brown’s admissions page, updated as of September 2026, lists 4,687 applicants and 50 enrolled students for the Program in Liberal Medical Education (PLME), which pairs undergraduate study with admission to Brown’s medical school, and 856 applicants and 20 enrolled students for the Brown|RISD Dual Degree program. Brown does not publish admit counts for either, so their selectivity cannot be computed from these figures, and Brown’s overall acceptance rate says nothing about either program.
Who Is in the First-Year Class?
Table 5 shows Brown’s first-year classes in the Common Data Set reporting categories. Under CDS rules, students who are not U.S. citizens or permanent residents are counted only as international, whatever their race or ethnicity, and every other student appears in exactly one category. Fall 2024 was the first class admitted after the Supreme Court’s June 2023 ruling ending race-conscious admissions.
| Category | Fall 2021 | Fall 2022 | Fall 2023 | Fall 2024 | Fall 2025 |
| White | 37.7% | 31.5% | 31.0% | 30.6% | 28.4% |
| Asian | 17.7% | 20.8% | 24.2% | 27.3% | 24.5% |
| International | 11.3% | 13.5% | 11.6% | 14.1% | 13.0% |
| Hispanic/Latino | 13.1% | 12.6% | 13.6% | 10.1% | 11.3% |
| Two or more races | 8.0% | 8.6% | 8.3% | 6.9% | 8.4% |
| Black | 9.5% | 10.0% | 9.3% | 5.5% | 7.4% |
| Unknown | 2.3% | 2.5% | 1.8% | 5.5% | 6.9% |
| Other | 0.5% | 0.6% | 0.2% | 0.1% | 0.2% |
| First-years reported | 1,705 | 1,717 | 1,695 | 1,719 | 1,750 |
Table 5. First-time, first-year students by CDS race and ethnicity category, Fall 2021 to Fall 2025. Source: Brown Common Data Set, item B2. “Other” combines American Indian or Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. Shares computed by College Transitions from the B2 totals.
The Black share fell from 9.3 percent in Fall 2023 to 5.5 percent in Fall 2024, then rose to 7.4 percent in Fall 2025. The Hispanic share moved from 13.6 percent to 10.1 percent and then 11.3 percent. Over the same two years, the share of students whose race is unknown rose from 1.8 percent to 6.9 percent, a change large enough that these numbers cannot establish whether the ruling caused any of the shifts. The white share declined steadily, from 37.7 percent in Fall 2021 to 28.4 percent in Fall 2025.
Brown reported that 19 percent of admitted students in both the Class of 2029 and the Class of 2030 would be the first in their families to attend college. The Common Data Set does not collect that measure.
What Do Brown Students Study?
Brown has no general education distribution requirements under its Open Curriculum, and students choose a concentration, Brown’s term for a major. In Brown’s reported distribution of bachelor’s degree fields for July 2024 to June 2025, the social sciences, a CDS category that includes economics, political science and sociology, accounted for 26.9 percent. Computer science and mathematics together accounted for another 23.2 percent.
Figure 5. Brown’s reported distribution of bachelor’s degree fields, July 2024 to June 2025. Source: Brown Common Data Set 2025-26, item J1.
The Common Data Set lets colleges compute these shares from first and second majors combined or from first majors only, and Brown’s filing does not say which it used, so the figures are best read as field shares rather than counts of students. Compared with degrees conferred four years earlier, the social sciences share rose from 17.9 percent and mathematics from 7.5 percent. The 2021-22 filing also listed degrees in public administration, health professions and business, which together made up 9.1 percent, and the 2025-26 filing lists each of them at zero. The filings do not explain the change, so the social sciences comparison may partly reflect how degrees were classified.
Do Students Stay and Graduate?
Almost every Brown student returns for a second year and finishes. Retention ranged from 98 to 98.8 percent across the last five filings, and the six-year graduation rate held between 95.0 and 95.8 percent for the cohorts that entered from 2015 to 2019.
| Filing | First-year retention | Six-year graduation cohort | Six-year graduation rate | Pell recipients |
| 2021-22 | 98% | Entered 2015 | 95.8% | 93.4% |
| 2022-23 | 98.7% | Entered 2016 | 95.0% | 90.1% |
| 2023-24 | 98.5% | Entered 2017 | 95.7% | 93.1% |
| 2024-25 | 98.8% | Entered 2018 | 95.7% | 92.0% |
| 2025-26 | 98.8% | Entered 2019 | 95.6% | 92.3% |
Table 6. Retention and six-year graduation rates. Source: Brown Common Data Set, item B22 and the graduation rate tables in section B. Pell rates are for cohort members who received a Pell Grant.
Pell Grant recipients graduated at lower rates, between 90.1 and 93.4 percent depending on the cohort. For students who entered in 2019, the gap was 3.3 percentage points. In the Fall 2025 term, 66.4 percent of Brown’s 1,242 undergraduate class sections had fewer than 20 students, and 59 sections had 100 or more.
What to Do With These Numbers This Cycle
Brown’s early decision deadline for the Class of 2031 passed on November 1, so most students reading this are weighing the regular round. Use the Fall 2025 SAT range, 1470 to 1550, as the score comparison, since it draws on far more of the class than the test-optional ranges did. Treat the regular decision rate, about 4 percent in each of the last two cycles, as a measure of how competitive that round is, not as any one applicant’s chance. Before the application goes in, have a parent run Brown’s cost estimator and compare the result with the $125,000 and $60,000 thresholds. If a waitlist offer comes in the spring, a student who still wants Brown can accept the spot while committing to another college by its enrollment deadline, and should plan around that other college, because Brown’s waitlist admits have ranged from 15 to 295 a year. For more on applying, see our guide to how to get into Brown.
Sources: Brown University Common Data Set, 2019-20 through 2025-26 editions (Fall 2019 to Fall 2025 entering classes; degrees conferred through June 2025; charges through 2026-27), from Brown’s Office of Institutional Research. The 2025-26 edition was read from Brown’s original filing. Class of 2030 applications, admits, acceptance rate, early decision admits, first-year enrollment, admitted-student SAT range and PLME and Brown|RISD figures from Brown Admission’s statistics page (figures as of September 2026); Class of 2030 March figures from Brown University News (March 26, 2026) and The Brown Daily Herald (March 2026); Class of 2029 preliminary counts from Brown University News (December 13, 2024, and March 27, 2025). Testing policy from Brown University News (March 5, 2024); international need-blind policy from Brown University News (January 25, 2024); Brown Promise and income thresholds from Brown University News (March 23, 2023) and The Boston Globe (February 10, 2026). 2026-27 cost of attendance and allowances from Brown Undergraduate Financial Aid. Penn comparison from the University of Pennsylvania Common Data Set 2025-26 and The Daily Pennsylvanian (June 12, 2026). All rates not reported directly by Brown were computed by College Transitions from the counts shown.
Sources
Brown University Office of Institutional Research, Common Data Set (all editions). https://oir.brown.edu/institutional-data/common-data-set
Brown Admission, Brown Admission by the Numbers (figures as of September 2026). https://admission.brown.edu/explore/brown-admission-numbers
Brown University News, Class of 2030 admitted students (Mar. 26, 2026). https://www.brown.edu/news/2026-03-26/admitted-students-class-2030
The Brown Daily Herald, Brown admits 5.35% of applicants to Class of 2030 (Mar. 2026). https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2026/03/brown-admits-5-35-of-applicants-to-class-of-2030
Brown University News, Class of 2029 early decision results (Dec. 13, 2024). https://www.brown.edu/news/2024-12-13/early-decision
Brown University News, Class of 2029 admitted students (Mar. 27, 2025). https://www.brown.edu/news/2025-03-27/admitted
Brown University News, admission policy decisions on testing and early decision (Mar. 5, 2024). https://www.brown.edu/news/2024-03-05/admissions
Brown University News, need-blind admission for international students (Jan. 25, 2024). https://www.brown.edu/news/2024-01-25/international-financial-aid
Brown University News, the Brown Promise (Mar. 23, 2023). https://www.brown.edu/news/2023-03-23/brown-promise
The Boston Globe, Brown 2026-27 tuition (Feb. 10, 2026). https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/02/10/metro/brown-university-tuition-hike-2026/
Brown Undergraduate Financial Aid, cost of attendance. https://finaid.brown.edu/estimate-cost-aid/cost
