The increasing competitiveness of the college application process in the United States has been a consistent trend for decades now. In this chart, we analyze the year-by-year undergraduate admissions rates for a group of selective colleges to better understand this trend over time. As expected, the average admissions rate among the group has moved lower, from 9.5% for the class of 2016 to 5.1% for the class of 2025 (students who will begin their sophomore years this fall).
Also interesting is the clustering in admission rates among this group. For the class of 2016, 10.9 percentage points divided the most selective college (Harvard) from the “least” selective (Cornell). Fast forward to the class of 2026 (with the data we have so far) and this spread has compressed to only 3.7 percentage points.
It’s also worth noting that the trend lower in admission rates does not exist at all U.S. colleges. According to a 2019 study from Pew Research, about 31% of colleges had their admit rates actually go up from 2002-2017.
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