Top College Acceptance Rates Fall

Despite the high price tag, prestigious private colleges are turning away high-school seniors in droves. The numbers for the 2013-2014 application cycle show the battle to get into one of America’s elite universities has largely only increased. While there are exceptions, such as Harvard, which rose from 5.8 to 5.9 percent in its acceptances, many schools hit historic lows this year. Stanford is believed to have the lowest acceptance rate in the nation at 5 percent, down from 20 percent two decades ago. Columbia, the University of Chicago, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania also saw declines in acceptance rates, the latter two to historic lows. Admission officials cite how much easier the almost-universal Common Application makes it to apply to multiple schools, as well as the increasing number of foreign students applying to add to the pool.