Most US Colleges Accept the Majority of Applicants, Pew Reports

An experienced education professional, Amy Kennelly Viellieu recently concluded a 7-year tenure with the University of Chicago as an auxiliary application reader in the office of college admissions. Amy Kennelly Viellieu expanded her college admissions knowledge by completing an Academy for College Admission Counseling program in 2019.

A 2019 study conducted by the Pew Research Center revealed that most American colleges admit the majority of students that submit applications. Out of 1,364 four-year colleges surveyed for the study in 2017, only 17 had an acceptance rate of 10 percent or lower. These schools included the nation’s most prestigious academic institutions, such as Stanford and Harvard, which had acceptance rates of 4.7 and 5.2 percent, respectively.

That said, only 3.4 percent of surveyed schools, or about 4.1 percent of the national enrollment, were described as “extremely competitive.” On the other hand, approximately 53.5 percent of schools admitted at least 66 percent of applicants. A number of notable schools fell into this group, such as Virginia Tech’s 70.1 percent acceptance rate and Quinnipiac University’s 73.9 percent rate.

It should be noted that overall admissions rates have decreased in recent years. Nearly half of the schools featured in this study had lowered admissions rates by 10 percent or more when compared to 2002 enrollment. A good deal of this change, however, can be attributed to the fact that more students are applying to more schools: 4.9 million college applications were submitted in 2002, compared to 10.2 million in 2017.