Brown University Admissions

Get Into Brown University

About Brown University

Brown is part of the Ivy League and was founded in 1764, 128 years after Harvard and two years before Dartmouth came to be. Brown, located in Providence, Rhode Island, was the first college in the United States to accept students regardless of their religion. 

The campus is beautifully set in a federally listed architectural district where students are living among Colonial-era buildings and a charming group of restored seventeenth- and eighteenth-century architecture while also having access to downtown Providence with all the coffee shops and great restaurants imaginable. Brown has been forward thinking about sustainability for years, with active student groups around this issue on campus.

Brown is ranked #9 on the U.S. News and World Report Best College rankings guide, tied with Johns Hopkins and Northwestern. There are about 7,300 undergraduates at the College of Brown University, 14 percent are international students.  

Brown’s student-to-faculty ratio is 6:1 and 100 percent of the faculty teach undergraduates. 69 percent of Brown’s undergraduate classes have fewer than 20 students. There are approximately 79 majors available, called “concentrations,” and if students don’t find something to their liking, they can design a concentration. About 80 percent of Brown graduates pursue graduate school.   Brown has two coveted undergraduate-level dual degree programs:

1.) Brown-RISD Dual Degree Program: This is a collaboration between Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University.  It’s incredibly competitive with a 2-3 percent acceptance rate and only 15-22 students are typically accepted from a pool of over 700 applicants. It’s unique because students may combine disciplines such as philosophy with biology or art history with art and design or even math with architecture.  Brown offers majors or concentrations in the physical and biological sciences, social sciences, mathematics, and the humanities. RISD offers specialized education in all categories of visual media, architecture, and design.

College Acceptance Results for Top Tier Admissions

Top Tier’s students had GREAT results in both the early and regular rounds. Check out our successes!

The program is five years in length. Students may receive a Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) degree or, a Bachelor of Science (Sc.B.) from Brown and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) degree from RISD. Prospective students have to be accepted to both institutions and then be approved by a separate Brown/RISD Dual Degree admissions committee.

And 2.) Program in Liberal Medical Education (PLME): PLME is also a coveted program with a 3-4 percent acceptance rate. This makes these two programs more difficult than Harvard or Stanford in terms of acceptance. Typically 90-95 students annually are admitted to PLME. This is an eight-year program leading to both a bachelor’s degree and an M.D. degree from Brown’s Warren Alpert Medical School.

Applying to Brown

Brown typically accepts about 5-6 percent of applicants. If you are interested in Brown and hope to attend, you first want to make sure that you are in the top 10 percent of your high school class as 96 percent of accepted freshmen typically hold that status. If you are not in the top 10 percent of your high school class and don’t have a hook of some sort (athletic recruit, legacy, underrepresented minority, VIP) then we’d suggest you rethink your plans if you are a senior.  If you are younger, focus on your grades above all else! 

Brown offers Early Decision (apply by November 1 and hear back in mid-December) and Regular Decision (apply by January 1 and hear back by late March) rounds of admission. If you choose to apply to Brown under Early Decision, you cannot submit an application to another institution under another Early Decision plan, or a single-choice Early Action plan. If you are admitted under Brown’s Early Decision option, you are required (by Brown) to withdraw all pending applications, including those you may have already submitted to Regular, Rolling, or Early Action programs. Brown offers an option for alumni interviews conducted by alumni volunteers. After you have submitted your application to Brown, one of them will contact you directly to set up the interview. Early Decision interviews are completed by early-December and Regular Decision interviews are completed by mid-February.

Brown University Admissions Wrap Up

Class of 2028
Brown received 6,244 applications for early decision for the Class of 2028 and accepted 898 applicants. This is a rate of 14.38 percent which is higher than last year’s 13 percent. Last year, Brown received 6,770 applications for early decision for the Class of 2027 and accepted 879 applicants. In previous years, Brown accepted 896 students out of 6,146 early applications received for the class of 2026.

Here are some Common Application main essay first few lines from accepted Brown applications:

Heading to the post-impressionist gallery at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston last summer, an unfamiliar image stopped me in my tracks.

I was running low on water, my back ached and I was losing feeling in my legs, but I rallied myself for the 10th consecutive hour of Orange is the New Black, Season 3. 

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been the one who asked the tough questions.

Top Tier Admissions Can Help You Get Into Brown University:

Ready to Apply to Brown? Try one these Top Tier options!

Application Boot Camp®

Need strategic guidance from start to finish? Try Application Boot Camp®.

Personal Boot Camp

Personal Boot Camp

Three days of one-on-one work with a Senior Counselor from the Application Boot Camp® team.

College admissions private counseling

College Private Counseling

Develop an organized and effective application strategy that leverages your academic and extracurricular experience to stand out.

Work with our expert tutors and ace your AP exams!

X

Top Tier Futures: Early college prep, educational guidance & resources for grades 4-8

X