2024 Ivy League & Elite College Early Acceptance Rates

Welcome to College Transitions’ first look at early round acceptance rates at Ivy League and other highly-selective colleges and universities for the 2019-20 cycle. As of this posting in January of 2020, there are still many schools who have yet to report their early round results. As such, you will see a number of “TBD” designations in the charts below. These will be updated as soon as additional data becomes available.

What follows are two charts, both showing Class of 2024 and Class of 2023 data for the Early Action, Early Decision, and Single Choice Early Action/Restrictive Early Action rounds. One is for Ivy League schools and the other is for additional elite schools who are known for reporting their early acceptance information in a timely manner. We will also highlight trends and notable facts from schools that have reported their present-year acceptance rates.

Ivy League – ED/SCEA Acceptance Rates

Ivy League Early Decision Facts & Trends:

Brown

• Brown’s 4,562 applicants represent their highest total ever.
• Early decision applications increased 8% compared to the Class of 2023 and by more than 40% over the last three years.
• 17% of students will be first in their family to attend college, up from 11% last year.

Cornell

• Cornell’s ED acceptance rate increased for the first time in four years.
• 6 percent are women — a 4% decrease from last year.
• Over the past decade, ED applications to Cornell have increased by 90 percent.

Dartmouth

• The 2024 ED group also includes record percentages of public high school students (54%), first-generation students (15%), foreign citizens (12%), and students of color (35%).
• The children of Dartmouth alumni represent 15% of the accepted students.
• Recruited athletes make up 25% of this group.

Harvard

• Harvard actually saw their acceptance rate increase for the first time in six years.
• There was a slight increase in the percentage of students admitted early action who identify as African American, Latino, and Native American and Native Hawaiian.
• The percentage of admits who are international citizens also declined from 11.2 percent to 9.6 percent.

Penn

• The University of Pennsylvania experienced a 9% decline in applicants from the previous year and its lowest total since 2016.
• 52% of admits identify as a member of a minority group.
• 24% had a parent or grandparent who attended Penn. For the Class of 2023, 23% of admitted students were legacies.

Princeton

• 48% of admitted students were U.S. citizens or permanent residents who self-identified as people of color, including biracial and multiracial students.
• 16% were from lower-income backgrounds.
• 13% were first-generation college students.

Yale

• The number of application declined from the previous year.
• 56 percent of the 5,777 students who applied through early action were deferred.
• The Class of 2024 will be roughly 200 students larger in size than the Class of 2023.

Other Highly-Selective Colleges ED/EA Acceptance Rates

Highly-Selective Colleges & Universities Early Decision Facts & Trends:

Duke

• Duke experienced a slight dip in the number of ED applications for the Class of 2024.
• There were 552 more ED applications last cycle.
• ED admits typically represent over 50% of the university’s freshman classes.

Emory        

• Emory College admitted 580 students and Oxford College admitted 295 students.
• 29 Questbridge were matched with Emory.
• Emory’s ED acceptance rate was notably higher than the previous year.

Georgetown

• Georgetown saw their number of applications decrease by 6% in 2019.
• The school with the highest 2024 ED acceptance rate was the School of Foreign Service at 13%
• The school with the lowest acceptance rate was Georgetown College at 10.95%

Johns Hopkins

• The number of Early Decision applicants grew 16% from a year ago.
• The ED Class of 2024 had the most diverse demographic, socioeconomic, and geographic makeup of any JHU class in the school’s history.
• Admits included “a humanist scholar who analyzes the significance of Shakespeare to Chinese culture; an inventor of an inexpensive, portable camera that can photograph the back of the human eye; a children’s book illustrator; a researcher focused on LGBTQ oncological therapies to eliminate health care access disparities; and an international video game champion.”

Rice

• There was a 13 percent decline in ED applications the university received.
• 2,628 ED applications were received last year, 2,042 ED applications were submitted this year.
• The number of applications has grown overall by 30 percent from 2017 to this year.

University of Virginia

• 26% of admitted students are legacies.
• 7% percent are first-generation college students.
• 59% of those accepted are female, and 41% are male.

Check back for more updates on Class of 2024 acceptance rate data as it becomes public.