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Ivy League Acceptance Rates for the Class of 2030
All eight Ivies, early vs regular rates, and what changed this cycle
Arkesh P.
Chief Operating Officer at Crimson
Summary
Ivy League acceptance rates for the Class of 2030 run from just over 4% at Princeton, its lowest on record, to an estimated 8.3% to 9.2% at Cornell. The eight-school average held at about 5.3%. Yale, Brown, Columbia and Dartmouth each admitted a smaller share than last year, while Penn rose to 5.8% after its first test-required cycle cut applications by 15.5%. Harvard and Cornell haven't published full figures. Crimson students received 395 Ivy offers in the cycle, up from 292 two cycles earlier.
Ivy League acceptance rates for the Class of 2030
Six of the eight Ivy League schools admitted between 4% and 6% of applicants for the Class of 2030. Princeton came in just over 4%. Columbia (4.23%) and Yale (4.24%) sat a fraction above it, and Penn and Dartmouth tied at the top of the confirmed group, both at about 5.8%. Cornell is the only Ivy likely to finish above 8%.
All eight released regular decision results on Ivy Day 2026, March 26, but only Yale, Columbia, Brown and Dartmouth published totals that day, and Dartmouth held back its early decision figures for the second year running. Penn followed in June and Princeton's numbers surfaced in September. As of early October 2026, Harvard and Cornell still hadn't released application totals. Crimson's 315 Ivy admits from the same cycle received 395 offers between them.
| Applications | Admitted | Acceptance rate | Class of 2029 rate | Status |
47,937 | 2,564 | 5.4% | 5.7% | Confirmed | |
61,031 | 2,581 | 4.2% | 4.3% | Confirmed | |
63,000 to 70,000* | 5,776 | 8.3% to 9.2%* | 8.0% | Admits confirmed; application total not yet published | |
28,863 | 1,687 | 5.8% | 6.0% | Confirmed; ED figures withheld | |
46,000 to 52,000* | 1,950 to 2,050* | 3.8% to 4.4%* | 4.2% | Withheld; expected October or November 2026 | |
61,264 | 3,575 | 5.8% | 4.9% | Reported June 2026; ED/RD split withheld | |
46,618 | Not published | Just over 4.0% | 4.4% | Confirmed September 2026; admit count not published | |
54,919 | 2,328 | 4.2% | 4.6% | Confirmed |
Class of 2030 (2025/26 cycle). Figures marked with an asterisk are Crimson estimates anchored to each school's last three cycles and will be replaced with actuals as Harvard and Cornell publish. Class of 2029 rates are decision-day figures except Harvard and Princeton, which report only after enrollment.
The Harvard estimate is conservative. Harvard has admitted between 1,965 and 2,003 students in each of the last four cycles, so nearly all the uncertainty sits in application volume. Princeton's enrolled class came in at 1,414, close to the 1,408 who enrolled a year earlier. Cornell confirmed 5,776 admits on Ivy Day but hasn't yet published its application total. The estimate assumes its first test-required cycle cut into the 72,523 applications it received the year before, as testing did at the other Ivies that brought it back.
How Class of 2030 acceptance rates compare with the Class of 2029
Comparing decision-day figures, with midpoint estimates for Harvard and Cornell, the eight-school average held at about 5.3% for both classes. Below that flat line, five schools' acceptance rates fell and one, Penn's, rose.
Yale fell from 4.60% to 4.24%, Brown from 5.65% to 5.35%, Dartmouth from 6.0% to 5.84%, Columbia from 4.29% to 4.23%, and Princeton from 4.42% to just over 4%. Each time the driver was a bigger applicant pool. Yale admitted 20 more students than the year before on 4,691 more applications and Brown admitted 146 more students on 5,172 more applications. Dartmouth made 15 fewer offers on 633 more applications, and Princeton's pool grew by about 4,300 to a record 46,618. Columbia admitted 24 more students on 1,415 more applications, also a record pool.
Penn went the other way, from 4.87% to 5.8%, and that single change offset the declines in the average.
Princeton set a historic low this cycle. The other records, on final figures, still stand: Harvard 3.2% and Columbia 3.7% (Class of 2026), Yale 3.9% and Dartmouth 5.4% (Class of 2028), Brown 5.1% and Cornell 7.3% (Class of 2026), and Penn 4.9% (Class of 2029).
Why Penn's acceptance rate rose to 5.8%
The Class of 2030 was Penn's first cycle with SAT or ACT scores required again. The drop matches what happened at Harvard, Yale, Brown and Dartmouth a year earlier, when each brought back testing and lost between 10.8% and 12.6% of its applications in a single cycle. The likeliest explanation is that students who would have withheld their scores under test-optional didn't apply once Penn required them.
Penn's early round shrank too, to about 7,800 early decision applications from roughly 9,500. Penn hasn't published an early decision rate since the Class of 2026, but its incoming class profile says 52% of the enrolled Class of 2030 came through early decision. Because ED is binding, that works out to roughly 1,250 ED admits and an ED rate near 16%, against about 4.3% for everyone else.
Crimson's offers to Penn rose in each of the last three cycles, from 56 to 95, including 2024/25, when Penn's rate hit its record low of 4.87%. Crimson's student numbers grew over the same stretch.
A higher acceptance rate doesn't mean Penn got easier
Penn required test scores from every applicant this cycle, apart from those granted a hardship waiver. The drop of roughly 11,000 applications most likely came from students who'd have applied without sending scores, and Penn's admitted class barely changed in size. For an applicant with strong testing, that points to a bar that held steady. If you're comparing your odds with last year's, the 4.87% and 5.8% figures describe two different applicant pools, and in the newer one, sending a score wasn't optional.
Why Harvard, Princeton and Cornell delay their Class of 2030 numbers
Harvard, Princeton and Cornell no longer publish admissions statistics on decision day. Harvard adopted its policy ahead of the Class of 2029, citing the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, and now releases figures each October or November, after its mandatory reporting to the Department of Education.
Princeton stopped announcing admission figures on decision day in 2022, but its figures still reach the public through faculty reports and its Common Data Set (CDS). The Class of 2030 numbers came out in September, in the admissions committee's annual report to the faculty.
Cornell hasn't announced application totals on Ivy Day since 2020, though it still confirms how many students it admitted.
Columbia joins them from the Class of 2031 cycle. It will no longer release figures after early or regular decision, and will publish them in its first-year class profile, generally by mid-September.
Dartmouth and Penn released partial data. Dartmouth withheld its early decision split for the second year running, and Penn confirmed totals in June with no round breakdown beyond the share of its enrolled class admitted early.
How reinstated testing reshaped Ivy applicant pools
Reinstating SAT and ACT requirements follows a two-year pattern at the Ivies. Applications fall sharply in the first test-required cycle, then partly recover in the second. Five schools have now reported a first test-required cycle, and three of them a second.
| First cycle requiring scores | Changes in applications | Second cycle | Change in applications |
Class of 2029 | -11.3% (54,008 to 47,893) | Class of 2030 | Not released | |
Class of 2029 (test-flexible) | -12.6% (57,465 to 50,228) | Class of 2030 (test-flexible) | +9.3% (to 54,919) | |
Class of 2029 | -12.5% (48,898 to 42,765) | Class of 2030 | +12.1% (to 47,937) | |
Class of 2029 | -10.8% (31,656 to 28,230) | Class of 2030 | +2.2% (to 28,863) | |
Class of 2030 | -15.5% (72,544 to 61,264) | Class of 2031 | Pending | |
Class of 2030 | Not yet released (from 72,523) | Class of 2031 | Pending |
Yale ended its test-flexible option in May 2026, so the current cycle, for the Class of 2031, is its first requiring the SAT or ACT specifically, and its pool could dip again.
Columbia and Princeton, the two Ivies still test-optional for the Class of 2030, saw applications rise instead, by 2.4% and about 10%. Both will require scores from the 2027-28 cycle, which puts all eight Ivies back on testing.
If the pattern holds, Penn and Cornell should see applications recover for the Class of 2031 and their rates tighten again. That growth likely comes from applicants with scores worth submitting, which makes the rebound pool the stronger one. Schools accepted the short-term hit because scores do a job in the file that a transcript can't. Princeton's five-year review found that students who submitted scores went on to perform better academically once enrolled than those who didn't.
Testing is really critical. The data and the research shows that it's a strong supporting indicator. Supporting is a key word. It can't replace. Because high schools are so different across so many perspectives, the testing is a standard.
Ritz B
Former Cornell Admissions Officer
Brown used it as a confirmation that the student can handle learning on the campus. Sometimes that standardized testing will reaffirm the academic strength, but can sometimes suggest potential.
Mariama A
Former Brown Admissions Officer
Early action/decision vs regular decision acceptance rates for the Class of 2030
Early applicants were admitted at about four times the regular decision rate at the Ivies that released round-by-round figures. Yale admitted 10.9% of single-choice early action applicants and about 2.9% in the regular round. Brown admitted 16.5% early and 3.9% regular.
School | Early round | Early applicants | Early admits | Early rate | Regular applicants | Regular admits | Regular rate |
Yale | Single-choice early action | 7,140 | 779 | 10.9% | 47,779 (plus about 1,285 deferred) | 1,393 | 2.9% |
Brown | Early decision | 5,406 | 890 | 16.5% | 42,531 | 1,674 | 3.9% |
Columbia | Early decision | 5,497 | 687* | 12.5%* | 55,534 | 1,894* | 3.4%* |
MIT | Early action | 11,883 | 655 | 5.5% | 16,466 | 644 | 3.9% |
Dartmouth | Early decision | Withheld | Withheld | Withheld (21.6% for Class of 2029) | Withheld | Withheld | Withheld (3.8% for Class of 2029) |
Cornell | Early decision | Not released | Not released | Not released (18.8% for Class of 2029) | Not released | Not released | Not released (6.7% for Class of 2029) |
Penn | Early decision | ~7,800 | ~1,250* | ~16%* | ~53,464 | ~2,320* | ~4.3%* |
Harvard | Restrictive early action | Withheld | Withheld | Withheld (8.7% for Class of 2028) | Withheld | Withheld | Withheld (2.7% for Class of 2028) |
Princeton | Single-choice early action | Withheld | Withheld | Withheld | Withheld | Withheld | Withheld |
Class of 2030 early and regular round acceptance rates. Columbia's asterisked figures are Crimson estimates because Columbia hasn't released its round split. Penn's are calculated from its class profile. MIT included for comparison.
The early round also fills a large share of each class. Brown's 890 early admits were 35% of its offers, and because early decision is binding and nearly all of them enroll, they make up about half of the class that arrives in September. Penn's early admits made up 52% of its enrolled class. Yale's 779 single-choice early action admits were a third of its offers.
Crimson's own admits show the regular round still works. 78 of the 315 Crimson students admitted to an Ivy this cycle, about one in four, held no early acceptance from any school and got their Ivy offers in the regular round.
The gap between rounds doesn't mean early applicants are held to a lower standard. Crimson's Ivy admits with an early acceptance and those without one both averaged about 1,540 on the SAT, with ACT scores converted, and listed the same number of activities, about 9.6. Early pools are self-selected, and a student who commits in November has usually done the research and finished the application, but the file that gets admitted looks the same in December as it does in March. The trade-off is the binding commitment. Early decision at Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth and Penn requires you to enroll if admitted, while the early action rounds at Harvard, Yale and Princeton don't.
How Ivy League acceptance rates have changed since the Class of 2024
The eight-school average acceptance rate fell from about 7.2% to 5.4% in one admissions cycle, and it hasn't moved much since. The Class of 2024 was the last class admitted before the pandemic. For the Class of 2025, the Ivies went test-optional and applications rose by between 15% at Princeton and 51% at Columbia in a single year. Every class since has come in between about 5.0% and 5.4%.
Ivy League Acceptances
AdmittedApplicants
Source: CDS & Crimson Estimates
Chart tabs show the year of entry: 2026 entry is the Class of 2030, 2020 entry is the Class of 2024.
A Class of 2024 applicant faced a 6.9% rate at Brown and 8.7% at Dartmouth. For the Class of 2030, those rates were 5.4% and 5.8%. Princeton's jump for the Class of 2026 came from a planned expansion of its undergraduate body. The Class of 2029 bump followed the return of testing at Harvard, Yale, Brown and Dartmouth, which shrank their pools for a year, and three of those four saw their rates fall again for the Class of 2030.
The odds have held at about 5% since the Class of 2025, so an Ivy League that admits about 5% of applicants is the baseline to plan around. A rise at one school in one year usually means its pool was smaller that cycle, so it's a poor reason to treat that school as a safer bet. Six years ago you competed against fewer applicants for a similar number of seats. Every Ivy has now brought back testing or will from the 2027-28 cycle, when Columbia and Princeton start requiring scores, so the pool is filtered and, on average, better prepared.
How Crimson students fared in the 2025/26 Ivy cycle
Crimson students received 395 offers from Ivy League schools in the 2025/26 cycle (class of 2030). Those offers went to 315 students, and 59 of them, about one in five, got into two or more Ivies. Across the Ivy League and Stanford, Crimson students were admitted at 7.4 times the rate of the general applicant pool. More than half applied from outside the US and Canada, where Ivy admit rates for international applicants run well below the domestic rate.
Crimson students received 395 Ivy League offers in the 2025/26 cycle, earned by 315 individual students, 59 of whom held acceptances from two or more Ivies.
Admitted students in the 2025/26 cycle applied from every region Crimson operates in. 141 of the 315 applied from the US or Canada. The largest group outside North America was East and Southeast Asia, with 82 students from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Korea, China, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, followed by Europe and Central Asia (27), the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (25), Latin America (22) and Australia and New Zealand (18).
Ivy Admits by Region
44.8%US & Canada26%East & Southeast Asia8.6%Europe & Central Asia7.9%Middle East & South Asia7%Latin America5.7%Australia & New Zealand
Source: Crimson admits 2025/26
Total Crimson admits to Ivy League Schools
| Admitted Crimson Students |
Penn | 408 |
Cornell | 308 |
Columbia | 308 |
Brown | 190 |
Yale | 155 |
Harvard | 154 |
Princeton | 126 |
Dartmouth | 91 |
Ivy League total | 1,740 |
Crimson student acceptances by Ivy League schools cumulative totals since 2015/16. Counts are offers; a student admitted to two Ivies appears once under each. The 7.4x figure compares Crimson's admit rate at each school with the school's published rate, weighted by where Crimson students applied and adjusted for the gap between domestic and international admit rates.
Penn and Cornell admit the largest classes, so they account for the most Crimson offers, and they're where Crimson's numbers have grown fastest, from 56 to 95 at Penn and 54 to 92 at Cornell in two cycles. Yale and Harvard both jumped in 2025/26 after two cycles in the low 20s. Crimson's own student numbers grew over the same period, so part of the rise from 292 to 395 offers reflects a bigger cohort.
At the Ivies, the transcript is the first filter, and most applicants pass it. With 84% of US college freshmen now reporting an A or A- high school average, top grades put you level with most of the field.
They think that grades are the only thing that matters. It's not. You have to have those, but the other things are equally and possibly even more important. You can't sit in your dorm room and just study all the time. Cornell does not want that.
Ritz B
Former Cornell Admissions Officer
So what do "the other things" look like? Among the 239 Crimson Ivy admits with complete Common App data, three in four listed research, four in five reported a national-level honor, and the average student filled 9.6 of 10 activity slots. Their average SAT was 1,537 and barely changed from school to school.
Profile of Crimson students admitted to Ivy League
| Crimson Ivy admits, 2025/26 |
Listed research on the Common App | 76% |
Reported at least one national-level honor | 82% |
Reported at least one international-level honor | 77% |
Average activities listed (of 10 slots) | 9.6 |
Profile of Crimson students admitted to Ivy League schools, 2025/26 cycle (n = 239 admits with complete Common App data). Honors are self-reported on the Common App.
Average SAT score of Crimson Ivy admits
School | Average SAT |
Dartmouth | 1560 |
Penn | 1550 |
Brown | 1550 |
Yale | 1540 |
Cornell | 1530 |
Harvard | 1530 |
Princeton | 1520 |
Ivy league Schools | 1540 |
SAT averages are among admits who submitted a score; Princeton and Columbia were test-optional this cycle.
Crimson's Dartmouth admits had the highest average SAT score and its Harvard and Princeton admits the lowest. At the two hardest Ivies to get into, Crimson students got in with slightly lower scores, which suggests the research, honors and activities above did more of the deciding.
Crimson's admits weren't all computer science and pre-med students either. 37% applied to at least one quantitative STEM program, but 31% applied in the social sciences, 16% in the humanities and 11% in the arts. That's 34 arts admits in one cycle, more than the long-shot reputation of arts applications would suggest.
Crimson Ivy admits by program/field
Field | Students | Share |
Quantitative STEM (CS, math, engineering, physics) | 115 | 37% |
Social sciences | 97 | 31% |
Business and economics | 90 | 29% |
Life sciences (biology, neuroscience, pre-med) | 63 | 20% |
Humanities | 50 | 16% |
Arts | 34 | 11% |
Frequently asked questions on Ivy League acceptances
Add a short description or introduction.
What is the average Ivy League acceptance rate for the Class of 2030?
About 5.3%, using midpoint estimates for Harvard and Cornell. The published rates run from just over 4% at Princeton to about 5.8% at Penn and Dartmouth. Harvard is estimated at 3.8% to 4.4%, so it could finish either side of Princeton, and Cornell between 8.3% and 9.2%. The average is level with the Class of 2029 and down from an eight-school average of about 7.5% for the Class of 2024, the last class admitted before the pandemic.
Which Ivy League school is the easiest to get into
Cornell. It's had the highest acceptance rate in the Ivy League for every class since the Class of 2024, and its Class of 2030 rate is estimated at 8.3% to 9.2%. The order below Cornell could change when Harvard reports this fall, and Cornell's rate varies widely across its eight undergraduate colleges and schools, which is one reason a ranking of the easiest and hardest Ivy League schools by acceptance rate alone is misleading.
When will Harvard release its Class of 2030 acceptance rate?
Harvard is expected to publish Class of 2030 figures in October 2026 with its federal reporting, the same schedule it followed for the Class of 2029. Cornell typically publishes through its Common Data Set between October and December. Princeton's figures came out in September through a faculty report. The table above is updated as each school reports.
Was Princeton test-required for the Class of 2030?
No. Princeton was test-optional for the Class of 2030 and stays optional for the 2026-27 cycle. It'll require the SAT or ACT from the 2027-28 cycle, for students entering in fall 2028. Columbia announced the same change in June 2026, ending a test-optional policy it had called permanent. Harvard, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell and Penn already require scores, and Yale no longer accepts AP or IB results in place of the SAT or ACT.
Does applying to all eight Ivies improve your chances?
Not in any meaningful way. Each school looks for a different fit and requires its own set of supplemental essays, and five of the eight run binding early decision programs that allow only one early commitment. Eight rushed applications usually perform worse than three carefully built ones. Multiple Ivy offers do happen: 59 of the 315 Crimson students admitted to an Ivy in 2025/26 held acceptances from two or more Ivies, 80 offers beyond their first between them.
If you're building a list for the Class of 2031 cycle and want to know where your profile actually stands against these numbers, Crimson's Ivy League admissions consulting team starts with a free assessment.
