Harvard University: Acceptance Rates & Statistics

Early Admissions & Regular Decision

© 2020 Top Tier Admissions

HARVARD EARLY ADMISSIONS

Harvard accepted 895 students to the Class of 2024 from a pool of 6,424 who applied early action for a rate of 13.9 percent. 9.6 percent of the admitted students are international and 10.1 percent are first-generation students. For the first time since the fall of 2013, the university’s early action pool posted a decline, with its early action pool decreasing by 7.7 percent. The 13.9 percent acceptance rate represents a 0.5 percent increase from last year. The early admission acceptance rate has not increased year-over-year since 2013. Dean Fitzsimmons takes a global view to explain the decrease, pointing to everything from wildfires in California (the number of early applicants from California declined nearly 17 percent) to school shootings and economic uncertainty to declining numbers of high school seniors. Women comprise 51.7 percent of the admitted class thus far, slightly more than last year, when women made up 51.3 percent of the early admit class. It seems that Harvard tipped in favor of women who are interested in the physical sciences and computer science. This year, 57.4 percent of admitted students who said they intend to concentrate in the physical sciences are women, compared to 52.9 percent last year and 33 percent the year before. For computer science, 49.1 percent of interested students are women, an increase from 42.9 percent last year, and 29 percent the year before.

HARVARD EARLY & REGULAR DECISION ADMISSIONS

In all, 895 of 6,424 early applicants were offered early admission to Class of 2024. The 13.9 acceptance rate represents a 0.5 percent increase from last year. The early admission acceptance rate has not increased year-over-year since 2013.  Women comprise 51.7 percent of the admitted class thus far, slightly more than last year, when women made up 51.3 percent of the early admit class. It seems that Harvard tipped in favor of women who are interested in the physical sciences and computer science. This year, 57.4 percent of admitted students who said they intend to concentrate in the physical sciences are women, compared to 52.9 percent last year and 33 percent the year before. For computer science, 49.1 percent of interested students are women, an increase from 42.9 percent last year, and 29 percent the year before. Harvard accepted a record-low 4.50 percent of applicants to its Class of 2023. This year, Harvard received a total of 43,330 applications compared to 42,749 for the Class of 2022 when the school admitted 1,962 students resulting in an overall admissions rate of 4.49 percent.  With 1,950 admitted students to the Class of 2023, the rate of admission dropped to 4.50 percent for the combined SCEA and regular decision. In the early round, Harvard University received 6,958 applications and accepted 935, for an admit rate of 13.44 percent. SCEA admit rate is substantially higher than the regular decision acceptance rate of below 3 percent. The percentage of Asian-American admits increased to 25.4 percent, from 22.7 percent last year — the first time a non-white racial demographic has exceeded one quarter of the admitted class. The percentage of Latino admits increased to 12.4 percent from last year’s 12.2 percent while the percentage of Native American and Native Hawaiian admits increased to 2.6 percent, up from last year’s 2.4 percent. The percentages of African-American admits and first-generation college students decreased by 0.7 and 0.9 percentage points, respectively. The admitted class is 14.8 percent African American and 16.4 percent of the admits will be the first in their families to attend college.