The 25 most selective colleges in America

Stanford University admitted 3.6% of applicants in Fall 2024, the lowest rate of any four-year college with at least 1,000 undergraduates. In all, 9 colleges admitted fewer than 5% of applicants.

#	College	Location	Admission rate	Applicants (Fall 2023)
1	Stanford University	Stanford, CA	3.6%	53,733
2	Harvard University	Cambridge, MA	3.7%	56,937
3	Yale University	New Haven, CT	3.9%	51,803
4	Columbia University in the City of New York	New York, NY	4%	57,613
5	University of Chicago	Chicago, IL	4.5%	38,631
6	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Cambridge, MA	4.6%	26,904
7	Princeton University	Princeton, NJ	4.6%	39,644
8	Northeastern University	Boston, MA	5.2%	96,631
9	Brown University	Providence, RI	5.4%	51,316
10	Dartmouth College	Hanover, NH	5.4%	28,841
11	University of Pennsylvania	Philadelphia, PA	5.4%	59,465
12	Duke University	Durham, NC	5.7%	46,365
13	Vanderbilt University	Nashville, TN	5.9%	45,313
14	Johns Hopkins University	Baltimore, MD	6.4%	38,926
15	Bowdoin College	Brunswick, ME	7.1%	10,966
16	Colby College	Waterville, ME	7.1%	17,786
17	Pomona College	Claremont, CA	7.1%	12,121
18	Swarthmore College	Swarthmore, PA	7.5%	14,287
19	Northwestern University	Evanston, IL	7.7%	51,769
20	Rice University	Houston, TX	8%	31,059
21	Williams College	Williamstown, MA	8.3%	11,465
22	Barnard College	New York, NY	8.8%	11,803
23	Cornell University	Ithaca, NY	8.8%	65,635
24	Amherst College	Amherst, MA	9%	12,727
25	University of California-Los Angeles	Los Angeles, CA	9%	145,903

How we got these numbers

Figures come from the U.S. Department of Education: the College Scorecard (released 2026-10-15) and the IPEDS Admissions survey. Data years:

• Admission rate: Fall 2024, reported in IPEDS DCY2024-25
• Applicants: Fall 2023, reported in IPEDS ADM2023
• Undergraduates: Fall 2024, reported in IPEDS DCY2024-25

Colleges with fewer than 500 applicants are excluded from selectivity rankings because their admission rates say little about selectivity. Full details on our data page.