Despite COVID-19 leaving them unable to finish out the school year, thousands of high school seniors received the news this March that they were accepted into Duke’s Class of 2024.
The Chronicle has compiled a comparison of Duke’s Regular Decision and overall acceptance statistics for the Class of 2024 with some peer universities in the Ivy League.
Duke welcomed 6% of Regular Decision applicants to the Class of 2024, offering admission to 2,170 out of 36,252 applicants. Of the applications considered, 35,483 were Regular Decision, while the remaining 769 were students who had been deferred from the Early Decision pool.
This 6% acceptance rate marks an increase of 0.3% from last year. Duke accepted just 5.7% of Regular Decision applicants for the Class of 2023, a record low for the University.
There were 39,783 total applications from both Regular and Early Decision, a decrease from last year’s 41,651 applications for the Class of 2023. With a 21% acceptance rate in the Early Decision program, Duke’s overall acceptance rate for the Class of 2024 was 7.7%, nearly identical to last year’s 7.8% acceptance rate.
Like Duke, other universities saw application numbers drop and acceptance rates rise compared to previous years.
Brown University
Brown University offered admission to 1,732 Regular Decision applicants, the acceptance rate increasing to 5.2% from last year’s 4.8%. With 800 students welcomed through the Early Decision program, the overall acceptance rate rose to 6.9% from a 6.6% acceptance rate for the Class of 2023.
The rising acceptance rate was aided by a drop in application numbers. While Brown received 38,674 applications for the Class of 2023, only 36,794 students applied for the Class of 2024. Despite the drop, these application pools make up the largest and second-largest in Brown’s history.
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania admitted just 6% of Regular Decision applicants this year, with 2,135 students receiving acceptance letters out of the 35,752 who applied. The overall acceptance rate for the Class of 2024 was 8.07%, with 3,404 high school seniors admitted of the 42,205 who applied.
Like Brown, the Class of 2023 had the largest application pool in UPenn history, but application numbers declined by 6.1% this year. This is also the first time that UPenn’s acceptance rate has increased in five years.
Yale
Yale College offered admission to 5.1% of Regular Decision applicants, with about 1,508 out of 29,443 being welcomed to the Class of 2024. Overall, Yale admitted 2,304 students out of a pool of 35,220 applicants, bringing the total acceptance rate for this year to 6.54% after last year’s 5.91%.
Yale’s application pool in general saw a decline, with last year’s admissions committee reviewing 36,843 applications for the Class of 2023, a record for the University.
Harvard
Harvard College admitted 3.2% of Regular Decision applicants to the Class of 2024. Out of 33,824 applicants, 1,085 students received offers of admission. Harvard’s overall acceptance rate for the Class of 2024 was 4.92%, which The Harvard Crimson states was “the first increase since students applied to the Class of 2018.” Last year, a record-low 4.5% of students were admitted.
About 40,248 students applied to Harvard this year–a seven percent drop from last year–and 1,980 students were welcomed.
Dartmouth
Dartmouth College had an 8.8% acceptance rate this year, with 1,881 students receiving offers of admission out of around 21,375 applicants. This follows a 7.9% overall acceptance rate for the Class of 2023.
For Regular Decision, Dartmouth admitted 6.9% of applicants to the Class of 2024, welcoming 1,334 high school seniors out of the 19,306 who applied.
Princeton
Princeton University offered admission to 1,823 students out of 32,838 applicants during the 2019-20 admissions cycle, totaling a 5.6% acceptance rate for the Class of 2024. Of these accepted students, Princeton accepted 791 through Single-Choice Early Action and 1,032 through Regular Decision.
The Class of 2024 marked the second-largest application pool in Princeton’s history, but it only represented a 0.1% increase–30 applications–from last year.
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Leah Boyd is a Pratt senior and a social chair of The Chronicle's 118th volume. She was previously editor-in-chief for Volume 117.