UPDATED: March 31, 2014, at 3:40 p.m.
Yesterday at 5 p.m., the fates of many high school seniors were altered as top U.S. colleges released their Regular Decision results. But what do the numbers tell us? First, let’s take a look at the acceptance rates of the most prestigious universities in the country for the class of 2018.
Colleges whose acceptance rates decreased:
Brown University - 8.6%, down from 9.2% last year.
Yale University - 6.26%, down from 6.72% last year.
Princeton University* - 7.28%, down from 7.29% last year.
University of Pennsylvania* - 9.9%, down from 12.1% last year.
Cornell University - 14%, down from 15.2% last year.
Duke University* - 9%, down from 10% last year (record low acceptance rate)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology* - 7.7 percent, down from 8.2% last year.
Colleges whose acceptance rates increased:
Harvard University - 5.9%, up from 5.8% last year.
Dartmouth College - 11.5%, up from 10% last year.
Columbia University - 6.94%, up from 6.89% last year.
Colleges getting more applications:
University of California, Los Angeles received 86,472 freshman applicants, up 6.9% from last year.
University of California, San Diego received 73,356 freshman applications, up 8.8% from last year.
Stanford University received 42,167 freshman applicants, up 8.6% from last year,
Cornell University received 43,041 freshman applicants, up 7.6% from last year.
Colleges getting less applicants:
Dartmouth College received 19,235 applications this year, down 14% from last year.
Harvard University received 34,295 applications this year, down 2.1% from last year.
Other fun facts
At University of California, Berkeley last year, offers to international students increased by 44% (from 1,137 to 1,638). As a result, the number of international students admitted to Berkeley last year was larger than MIT’s entire class of 2018.
MIT admitted only 1,419 students this year, a 9% less than last year. This was partly account for by the loss of accommodation provided by an undergraduate dorm, Bexley Hall, which was closed down last year after the building was deemed unsafe for residents due to structural problems.
Dartmouth welcomed its first-ever admitted students from Fiji and Iran.
When answering the MIT Class of 2018 Facebook group’s poll question "How did you feel when you got accepted?”, around 20% said that "[MIT admissions] made a mistake."
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
CORRECTION: March 31, 2014
An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated the direction in which Brown's admissions rate moved from the Class of 2017 to the Class of 2018. In fact, it decreased from to 8.6% from 9.2%.