126 Hardest Colleges to Get Into

(See the list for 2022 at the end of the post.) What are the hardest colleges to get into? Anyone going through the college admissions process can’t help but ask the question at least once. It’s a lot like visiting a Parade of Homes that you know you’ll never afford or maybe like rubbernecking while driving past a car wreck on the freeway-which ever analogy works for you. Of course, you can just look at US News College Rankings and get a pretty good idea. And that’s the point, everything in the media seems to reinforce the perception that exclusivity equals quality. Even if when we know better, we can’t help but feel insecure when we choose a lesser-known college.

Instant Download of Hardest Colleges to Get Into List

So what am I doing talking about the hardest colleges to get into given the overall orientation of my website? Simple, I want to show you some numbers including the acceptance rates of these “exclusive” colleges. Also, I would like to remind everyone of one thing: these colleges do not guarantee a job with a minimum salary after graduation. They are happy to let students and families infer that going to their schools will result in better employment outcomes but none will guarantee it. Because they can’t.

Let’s face it, while they would if they could, why bother? They have successfully branded themselves in the same way companies that sell luxury items have convinced customers that their product will enhance their image in some way. There’s no proof, just pervasive marketing that seems to convince even those who don’t actually buy the product.

Colleges with the Lowest Acceptance Rates

Enough of my rant. Let’s talk about the schools. There are approximately 1,600 4-year institutions with at least 500 full-time undergraduates in the country. Generally I focus on those that have at least a 50% graduation rate and accept at least 50% of students. That list is approaching 600 institutions. To create the list of the hardest schools to get into, I selected only schools that accepted less than 50% of students and have a 4-year graduation rate greater than 50%. This leaves me with 126 schools.

Just in case you’re wondering, there are 30 schools that accept less than 50% of students and have graduation rates less than 50%. One thing to keep in mind is that Northeastern University doesn’t show up on the list because it lists it’s 4-year graduation rate as 0. It has an extensive coop program which adds time (for paid work) to graduation and has a 5-year graduation rate of 88%.

Back to the hardest schools to get into. The following is a breakdown of the number of colleges by acceptance rates.

Acceptance Rates	Number of Colleges
40%-49%	27
30%-39%	23
20%-29%	17
10%-19%	35
Less than 10%	24

The fact is that when I say hardest schools to get into, most people are probably focused on the 76 that accept less than 30% of students. But here’s the first thing I would like people to think about. Over 75% of colleges and universities accept at least 50% of students. I know, I know, for those concerned with the hardest schools, the issue is are they the “right” colleges?

What a difference 20 years makes

Some of them have to be if for no other reason than demographics. The usual colleges and universities on the list of “elite” schools haven’t been expanding their class size to keep up with population growth. In 2001 there were only 47 schools with acceptance rates less than 30%. In 2001, Harvard accepted 11% of students, Princeton 12%, Stanford 13% which is 3 times the amount it did in 2021. All the students who didn’t get into those universities in 2021 had to go somewhere else which explains why the University of Chicago’s acceptance rate dropped from 44% in 2001 to just 6% in 2021. During the same period, Vanderbilt went from 46% to 7% and Tulane went from 61% to 10%.

Does that mean these universities dramatically improved over 20 years or just got harder to get into as more people were rejected from those schools topping US News College Rankings? If you believe that the quality of the students matter, then you’ve got to imagine many are going to be enrolling at colleges today that will be among the hardest to get into in another decade or two. Even if demographics are shifting to increasingly smaller cohorts of high school graduates, do you really think that Harvard is going to let its acceptance rate ever go past 10% again? I suspect it would lower its application fee before allowing its acceptance rate to go above 10%.

Hardest Colleges to Get Into Characteristics

Enough about the hardest colleges to get into in 2001 compared to 2021. Let’s talk about the characteristics of those on the 2021 list.

Location

The colleges can be found in 30 states. The top five states with the most institutions are:

California: 18
New York: 17
Massachusetts: 14
Pennsylvania: 11
North Carolina: 6
Virginia: 6

Some of this can be chalked up to the fact that these are the states with the most population but you notice that Texas doesn’t make the top five. There are eight states with only one institution on the hardest colleges to get into list and 21 without any. Location also includes geographic settings, think big city versus small town. It’s no surprise that half of the schools are located in large cities or their suburbs. Compared to those schools that didn’t make the list, the hardest schools to get into are overrepresented in these location settings. Surely location helps colleges appeal to students.

Size

As with all colleges, the majority of schools on the list, 73, have fewer than 5,000 full-time undergraduates. The rest are split between schools in the 5,000-9,999 category and 10,000 plus category. However, once again, the schools on the list are disproportionately represented in the largest categories. A total of 21% are in the largest category compared to just 13% of those not on the list while 21% are in the middle category compared to the 14% of schools who didn’t make the list.

Cost

If you’re hoping to attend one of the schools on the list, expect to pay a premium for the privilege. On average the total cost of attendance for the private schools on the hardest schools to get into list was $74,818 compared to $51,026 for those not on the list. The average out-of-state tuition for public universities on the list was much higher, $52,490, than the average of $35,960 for those not on the list. Even the in-state average total cost of $30,008 for public institutions on the list was higher than the $25,073 average for those not on the list.

Financial Aid

It’s common knowledge that very few students pay the actual sticker price (total cost of attendance) for college. Colleges are quick to tell you that 90 something percent of their students receive some sort of financial aid. And in general, that’s true. At private institutions, 94% of freshman receive some sort of financial aid. However, when you consider only private schools on the list of hardest colleges to get into, the average drops to just 74%. That means that at least a quarter of the freshman are full-pay students. Remember these are some of the most expensive colleges around.

This doesn’t mean that schools are stingy with financial aid. The list includes schools with some of the most generous financial aid policies in the country. It means that there are a lot of students that simply don’t qualify for financial aid because their families earn too much even under these generous policies. But it isn’t the case for all of the schools on the list.

The average net price for the private school on the list is $29,043 which is higher than the $24,105 for those not on the list. Average Net Price is the basic indicator of a college’s financial aid generosity. It’s the average price students pay after deducting all gift aid such as grants and scholarships. A total of 26 of the hardest schools to get into have average net prices below $24,105 indicating they are providing generous financial aid. However, there are 11 schools with average net price greater than $40,000 with two schools actually above $50,000. One is the California Institute of the Arts, not that surprising for an art school, but the other is NYU. Families should not assume just because a college is one of the hardest to get into, it will automatically provide generous need-based financial aid.

Pell Grants

This is true for Pell Grant recipients as well. Given the low percentage of freshman with Pell Grants at schools on the list, 18% at private institutions compared to 39% at those not on the list, you would think that low-income students could count on having their need fully met. It really all depends how you define need and remember, the schools get to define it.

The average net price for students in the lowest income category (less than $30,000) attending private schools on the list is $11,417 which is better than the $19,118 for those not on the list. Eight of the schools have an average net price less than $1,000 and another 19 are less than $6,000 which put the cost within the price of a student loan. Obviously, these are schools that do well-by low-income students who do attend. Yet, there are 13 schools where the average net price for students with family incomes under $30,000 is $20,000 or higher. And at least two of these schools, Lafayette and Bucknell, claim to meet 100% of freshman need.

126 Hardest Colleges to Get Into

The following is a list of the hardest colleges to get into based on data available from the Integrated Postsecondary Education System (IPEDS) in October of 2022.

Click here for Instant Download of the list in PDF format with average net price, percentage of freshman with Pell Grants, and 2001 acceptance rates.

Hardest Colleges to Get Into
(with at least a 50% 4-year graduation rate)

Name	Type	State	Full-time Under-grads	4 yr Grad-uation Rate	% Admitted 2021
California Institute of Technology	Private	CA	973	86	4
Princeton University	Private	NJ	4,746	90	4
Harvard University	Private	MA	6,161	86	4
Stanford University	Private	CA	6,157	77	4
Columbia University in the City of New York	Private	NY	7,792	88	4
Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Private	MA	4,326	88	4
Yale University	Private	CT	5,898	88	5
Dartmouth College	Private	NH	4,700	86	6
Brown University	Private	RI	6,889	86	6
University of Chicago	Private	IL	7,351	91	6
Duke University	Private	NC	6,940	89	6
University of Pennsylvania	Private	PA	10,213	89	6
Northwestern University	Private	IL	8,404	86	7
Vanderbilt University	Private	TN	7,061	89	7
Pomona College	Private	CA	1,556	86	7
Swarthmore College	Private	PA	1,533	87	8
Johns Hopkins University	Private	MD	5,894	87	8
United States Naval Academy	Public	MD	4,594	89	8
Rice University	Private	TX	4,037	87	9
Amherst College	Private	MA	1,863	87	9
Bowdoin College	Private	ME	1,881	89	9
Colby College	Private	ME	2,232	81	9
Cornell University	Private	NY	15,121	88	9
Williams College	Private	MA	2,043	85	9
Tulane University of Louisiana	Private	LA	8,078	77	10
Harvey Mudd College	Private	CA	827	88	10
Barnard College	Private	NY	2,744	85	11
Grinnell College	Private	IA	1,536	82	11
Tufts University	Private	MA	6,082	89	11
Claremont McKenna College	Private	CA	1,305	80	11
University of California-Los Angeles	Public	CA	32,325	83	11
United States Military Academy	Public	NY	4,549	79	11
Georgetown University	Private	DC	6,764	90	12
United States Air Force Academy	Public	CO	4,403	85	12
New York University	Private	NY	27,464	78	13
University of Southern California	Private	CA	19,533	79	13
Emory University	Private	GA	7,119	83	13
Middlebury College	Private	VT	3,626	84	13
Washington University in St Louis	Private	MO	7,187	87	13
Carnegie Mellon University	Private	PA	6,441	79	14
Colorado College	Private	CO	1,969	82	14
Hamilton College	Private	NY	2,013	87	14
University of California-Berkeley	Public	CA	30,385	79	14
University of Notre Dame	Private	IN	8,949	90	15
Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art	Private	NY	837	64	15
Wellesley College	Private	MA	2,353	84	16
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus	Public	GA	15,376	51	16
Colgate University	Private	NY	3,067	87	17
Bates College	Private	ME	1,922	88	17
Carleton College	Private	MN	1,952	87	18
Davidson College	Private	NC	2,029	86	18
Haverford College	Private	PA	1,342	84	18
Pitzer College	Private	CA	871	81	18
Rhode Island School of Design	Private	RI	1,818	70	19
Boston College	Private	MA	9,702	88	19
Boston University	Private	MA	17,431	84	19
Wesleyan University	Private	CT	3,031	86	19
Washington and Lee University	Private	VA	1,831	91	19
United States Coast Guard Academy	Public	CT	1,104	91	19
Vassar College	Private	NY	2,456	87	20
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	Public	NC	18,756	84	20
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	Public	MI	30,681	81	20
University of Virginia-Main Campus	Public	VA	17,173	89	21
American Musical and Dramatic Academy	Private	NY	1,664	67	22
Hillsdale College	Private	MI	1,448	78	24
Babson College	Private	MA	2,656	90	25
Villanova University	Private	PA	7,044	88	25
Wake Forest University	Private	NC	5,417	86	25
United States Merchant Marine Academy	Public	NY	1,047	74	25
University of Miami	Private	FL	11,307	73	28
Denison University	Private	OH	2,279	77	28
California Institute of the Arts	Private	CA	705	61	29
University of Richmond	Private	VA	3,172	84	29
University of California-Santa Barbara	Public	CA	23,527	70	29
The University of Texas at Austin	Public	TX	38,500	70	29
University of California-Irvine	Public	CA	29,867	68	29
Case Western Reserve University	Private	OH	5,355	67	30
Scripps College	Private	CA	908	77	30
Smith College	Private	MA	2,357	85	30
University of North Carolina School of the Arts	Public	NC	891	67	30
University of Florida	Public	FL	33,060	72	30
Skidmore College	Private	NY	2,561	81	31
Macalester College	Private	MN	2,080	85	31
California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo	Public	CA	20,569	57	33
Oberlin College	Private	OH	2,741	72	34
Trinity University	Private	TX	2,510	69	34
University of California-San Diego	Public	CA	31,746	73	34
Howard University	Private	DC	7,696	53	35
Bucknell University	Private	PA	3,725	83	35
Hampden-Sydney College	Private	VA	895	57	37
Kenyon College	Private	OH	1,755	83	37
William & Mary	Public	VA	6,393	86	37
Florida State University	Public	FL	30,808	70	37
Corban University	Private	OR	916	56	38
Franklin and Marshall College	Private	PA	2,349	78	38
Occidental College	Private	CA	1,870	79	38
Trinity College	Private	CT	2,212	81	38
Bryn Mawr College	Private	PA	1,332	81	39
Brandeis University	Private	MA	4,487	82	39
University of Georgia	Public	GA	29,542	68	40
Lafayette College	Private	PA	2,550	85	41
Connecticut College	Private	CT	1,735	78	41
Regent University	Private	VA	2,823	52	41
University of Rochester	Private	NY	6,101	76	41
Austin College	Private	TX	1,296	65	43
College of the Holy Cross	Private	MA	3,047	90	43
Reed College	Private	OR	1,406	61	44
Binghamton University	Public	NY	14,607	75	44
Emerson College	Private	MA	3,923	76	45
Illinois Wesleyan University	Private	IL	1,654	76	45
Loyola Marymount University	Private	CA	6,711	72	46
Columbia International University	Private	SC	713	57	46
Lehigh University	Private	PA	5,076	78	46
State University of New York at New Paltz	Public	NY	6,253	58	46
William Jewell College	Private	MO	776	61	47
Union College	Private	NY	2,082	80	47
St Olaf College	Private	MN	2,982	81	47
North Carolina State University at Raleigh	Public	NC	23,751	64	47
Clark University	Private	MA	2,248	75	48
Dickinson College	Private	PA	1,969	79	48
Stony Brook University	Public	NY	17,676	64	48
Mississippi College	Private	MS	2,359	51	49
Rollins College	Private	FL	2,579	63	49
University of California-Davis	Public	CA	31,201	62	49
Clemson University	Public	SC	20,978	65	49
University of South Florida	Public	FL	31,946	59	49

 

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