Ivy League Acceptance Rates 2027
Updated: 3rd November, 2026
TL;DR
You'll find Class of 2030 Ivy League acceptance rates from about 4% at Princeton and Yale to 5.8% at Penn and Dartmouth. Harvard, Columbia and Cornell didn't publish applicant totals, so you can't get a true rate for them. At every Ivy with published numbers, more than 94 of every 100 applicants heard no. If you want a project that makes your application specific, look at the Lumiere Research Scholar Program. It pairs you one-on-one with a PhD fellow or post-doc mentor to write a college-level research paper.
What are the Ivy League acceptance rates for the Class of 2030?
Five Ivies published enough numbers to show Class of 2030 rates from about 4% to 5.8%. Rates below are admits divided by applicants, calculated from each school's own figures. Where a school did not publish a number, the table says so.
School | Applicants | Admitted | Acceptance rate | Source (as of November 2026) |
Yale | 54,919 | 2,328 | 4.24% | |
Princeton | 46,618 | Not published | About 4.0% | |
Brown | 47,937 | 2,564 | 5.35% | |
Penn | 61,264 applications | 3,575 | 5.84% | |
Dartmouth | 28,863 | 1,687 | 5.84% | |
Columbia | Not published | 2,581 | Not published | |
Cornell | Not published | 5,776 | Not published | |
Harvard | Not published | Not published | Not published |
For the three schools without Class of 2030 rates, the newest official full figures come from each school's Common Data Set for fall 2025, which is the Class of 2029.
School | Applicants (fall 2025) | Admitted | Acceptance rate | Source (as of November 2026) |
Harvard | 47,893 | 2,003 | 4.18% | |
Columbia | 59,611 | 2,946 | 4.94% | |
Cornell | 72,523 | 6,077 | 8.38% |
Early round numbers were thinner. Only Brown and Yale published both the early applicant count and the early admit count for the Class of 2030.
School and round | Early applicants | Early admits | Early rate | Source (as of November 2026) |
Brown, Early Decision (Class of 2030) | 5,406 | 890 | 16.46% | |
Yale, Early Action (Class of 2030) | 7,140 | 779 | 10.91% | |
Columbia, Early Decision (fall 2025) | 5,868 | 819 | 13.96% |
When was Ivy Day 2026, and when is Ivy Day 2027?
Ivy Day 2026 was Thursday, March 26, 2026, the Ivy League's shared date for regular decisions. Cornell called March 26 "the official notification date for the Ivy League," and Brown opened its decision site at 7 p.m. Eastern that evening (as of November 2026).
The 2027 date is set by the schools, and none of the 8 has issued a joint announcement for it yet. One early signal: Brown's 2026-27 counselor newsletter lists March 31 for Regular Decision letters. Check each school's admissions page in the new year before you plan around a date.
Are Ivy League acceptance rates going down?
Mostly yes, because the applicant pools keep growing while class sizes stay about the same. The Class of 2030 cycle set or nearly set records at several schools.
Princeton: a record 46,618 applicants and its lowest rate ever, per the faculty report covered by The Daily Princetonian.
Brown: the pool grew 12% over the prior cycle, per Brown's announcement.
Yale: the pool grew 9.4% and was the second largest in Yale College history, per Yale News.
Dartmouth: applications rose 2.2%, up 35% across the last six classes. Dartmouth says this is the sixth straight year its rate has been 6% or less.
The trend is not a straight line at every school. Harvard's Common Data Set shows 54,008 applicants and 1,970 admits for fall 2024 (3.65%), then 47,893 and 2,003 for fall 2025 (4.18%). Harvard's rate went up for the Class of 2029 because fewer students applied, not because it admitted many more.
Why are Ivy League acceptance rates so low?
Tens of thousands of applications compete for a few thousand seats that barely change from year to year. Princeton enrolled 1,414 first-year students against a target of 1,425, per Princeton's own September 2026 release and The Daily Princetonian.
Yield matters too. Yield is the share of admitted students who enroll. Harvard enrolled 1,675 of its 2,003 admits in fall 2025, per its CDS, which works out to about 84%. When almost everyone says yes, a school can admit very few students and still fill its class.
Applying is also easy. One Common App can go to all 8 Ivies, so many strong students apply to most of them. Each extra application lowers every school's rate a little, even when the number of seats stays the same.
How are Ivy League early decision acceptance rates so high?
Early rates look higher because early applicants commit sooner and the schools fill a big share of their class in that round. Brown admitted 16.46% of its early pool for the Class of 2030, but its overall rate was 5.35%, per Brown's December and March announcements (as of November 2026).
Take Brown's numbers one step further. If you remove the early round, 1,674 regular admits came from about 42,531 remaining applicants. That is roughly 3.9%, a figure we calculated from Brown's own counts. The early round at Brown was about 4 times more likely to end in a yes than the regular round.
Penn shows how much of a class can come from one round. Penn's class profile says 52% of the Class of 2030 was admitted through Early Decision.
Be careful with the gap, though. The early pool is a different group of students, so the higher rate does not mean applying early alone multiplies your odds. Early Decision is also binding. Read our explainer on Early Action vs Early Decision before you pick a plan, then check each school's current rules.
What do Ivy League acceptance rates mean for your college list?
Treat every Ivy as a reach, even with perfect grades. A 5% rate means 19 out of 20 applicants hear no, and most of them had strong records too.
A good list has more than reaches. Pick a few schools where your grades and scores sit in the middle or top of the admitted range, and at least one or two where you are confident you will get in and would be happy to go. The best Ivy plan is a list where every school is one you would want to attend.
Also notice that the rates are close together. Dartmouth and Penn both landed at 5.84% for the Class of 2030, while Yale was at 4.24%. Fit, programs and cost should drive your choices more than a one-point difference.
How can you improve your odds of getting into an Ivy?
You cannot control the rate, but you can control how clear and specific your application is. These steps help without promising anything.
Take the hardest courses you can handle well. Grades in tough classes are the base layer of every Ivy file.
Go deep in one area. A long project you led tells readers more than ten clubs you joined. Research, a business, a published piece of writing or serious community work all count.
Use the early round only for your true first choice. Early Decision is a promise to attend if admitted.
Write essays only you could write. Specific scenes and real decisions beat big claims.
Check testing rules school by school. Policies differ across the Ivies, so read each admissions page for 2026-27. Penn requires tests again, and Brown requires the SAT or ACT.
A project you lead gives you something concrete to talk about in essays and interviews, but no program or activity guarantees admission. If you want ideas for going deep in one subject, browse these Ivy League STEM programs for high school students.
Where can you find school-by-school Ivy admissions guides?
Detailed acceptance rate guides cover several Ivies, each with deadlines, testing rules and essay notes for the 2026-27 cycle.
Read the school guide before you write that school's supplement, because each Ivy asks for different things.
Figures and dates in this post are as of November 2026. Schools sometimes update totals after spring. Brown's June 2026 counselor newsletter, for example, lists 2,688 total admits from 47,944 applications. Check the official page before you apply.
Frequently asked questions: Ivy League acceptance rates for high school students
Which Ivy League school is the easiest to get into?
Cornell had the highest recent official rate, 8.38% for fall 2025, per its Common Data Set. Cornell did not publish a Class of 2030 applicant total, so we cannot say whether that held. Among schools that did publish, Penn and Dartmouth tied at 5.84%. None of these is easy in any normal sense.
How difficult is it to get into an Ivy League school?
Very hard. At Yale, about 1 in 24 applicants got in for the Class of 2030, and at Dartmouth about 1 in 17. Strong grades are expected, so what helps is showing depth in something you care about. A long project you lead, such as research, a business or a writing portfolio, gives readers a clear story, though it cannot promise a yes.
How do you calculate an Ivy League acceptance rate?
Divide the number of admitted students by the number of applicants. For Yale's Class of 2030, that is 2,328 divided by 54,919, or 4.24%, using figures from Yale News. Use each school's own counts, since a headline rate blends early and regular rounds. Brown's regular round worked out to about 3.9% once you remove its early pool.
What will Ivy League acceptance rates be like in 10 years?
No Ivy publishes a forecast, so any 10-year number is a guess. Applicant pools at Princeton, Brown and Yale grew this cycle, which points to continued low rates. Our analysis of the enrollment cliff and Harvard explains why fewer high school graduates may not help at the most selective schools.
Is a 3.7 GPA good enough for the Ivy League?
A 3.7 is a solid GPA, but it rarely carries an Ivy application on its own. Harvard's Common Data Set reports an average high school GPA of 4.22 for its fall 2025 first-year class. That number likely includes weighted classes, so you can't compare it directly with your own. No Ivy publishes a GPA cutoff, so focus on hard courses, a rising trend and depth in one area.
Worried that grades and scores alone won't set you apart when more than 94 of every 100 Ivy applicants hear no? Look at the Lumiere Research Scholar Program. It pairs you one-on-one with a PhD fellow or post-doc mentor to write a college-level research paper. Apply here. If cost is the main barrier, also look at the Lumiere Research Inclusion Foundation, a non-profit research program for talented, low-income students.
Stephen Turban is the co-founder of Lumiere Education and a graduate of Harvard College, where he earned an A.B. in Statistics before beginning a PhD at Harvard Business School. A former McKinsey & Company consultant and former researcher, his research has been covered by the Harvard Business Review, The Economist, BBC News, Freakonomics Radio, and the Washington Post. In his articles for Forbes, he writes on what students and professionals can learn from high school research, high school passion projects, critical thinking, and mentorship. At Lumiere, he leads a selective research program where students work one-on-one with a research mentor to develop an independent research paper. Connect with him on LinkedIn.