U.S. Colleges Hardest to Get Into
Colleges with the Lowest Acceptance Rate in America for 2019
These are the most selective colleges in the United States. We've ranked the schools which reject over fifty percent of applicants by rate of acceptance. Leading the list is Harvard University which sent acceptance letters to only 5% of the 39,506 students who applied and rejected 95%. Interestingly, not all schools on our "most selective" lists are overly academically challenging. Schools with less rigorous standardized test and high school GPA requirements may receive a large numbers of qualified applicants and the school does not have the capacity to potentially enroll.
| Rank | College | Percent Admitted | Academic Difficulty | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts 39,506 Applicants |
5% | Very Hard | Chance |
| 2 | Stanford University Stanford, California 44,073 Applicants |
5% | Very Hard | Chance |
| 3 | Princeton University Princeton, New Jersey 31,056 Applicants |
6% | Very Hard | Chance |
| 4 | The Juilliard School New York, New York 2,753 Applicants |
6% | N/A | Chance |
| 5 | Yale University New Haven, Connecticut 32,879 Applicants |
7% | Very Hard | Chance |
| 6 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts 20,247 Applicants |
7% | Very Hard | Chance |
| 7 | Columbia University in the City of New York New York, New York 38,118 Applicants |
7% | Very Hard | Chance |
| 8 | California Institute of Technology Pasadena, California 7,339 Applicants |
8% | Very Hard | Chance |
| 9 | Pomona College Claremont, California 9,045 Applicants |
8% | Very Hard | Chance |
| 10 | Brown University Providence, Rhode Island 32,723 Applicants |
8% | Very Hard | Chance |
| 11 | University of Chicago Chicago, Illinois 27,694 Applicants |
9% | Very Hard | Chance |
| 12 | Northwestern University Evanston, Illinois 37,259 Applicants |
9% | Very Hard | Chance |
| 13 | University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 40,413 Applicants |
9% | Very Hard | Chance |
| 14 | Claremont McKenna College Claremont, California 6,349 Applicants |
10% | Very Hard | Chance |
| 15 | Dartmouth College Hanover, New Hampshire 20,035 Applicants |
10% | Very Hard | Chance |
| 16 | Duke University Durham, North Carolina 33,077 Applicants |
10% | Very Hard | Chance |
| 17 | Swarthmore College Swarthmore, Pennsylvania 9,382 Applicants |
11% | Very Hard | Chance |
| 18 | Vanderbilt University Nashville, Tennessee 31,462 Applicants |
11% | Very Hard | Chance |
| 19 | Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland 27,156 Applicants |
13% | Very Hard | Chance |
| 20 | Amherst College Amherst, Massachusetts 9,285 Applicants |
13% | Very Hard | Chance |