Columbia Admits 2,557 Applicants to the Class of 2029

 Columbia College and the School of Engineering and Applied Science admitted 4.29 percent of applicants for the class of 2029, accepting 2,557 students from a pool of 59,616 applications.

The schools notified regular decision applicants of their decisions on Thursday evening.

The admissions rate increased slightly from the last admissions cycle. For the class of 2028, the University admitted 2,327 students from a pool of 60,248 applicants, representing a 3.86 percent acceptance rate.

Columbia College and SEAS announced early decision results for the class of 2029 on Dec. 18, 2024. The schools received 5,872 early decision applications, a 2.28 percent decrease from 6,009 applications in the 2023-24 early admissions cycle.

The admitted students hail from all 50 states and 115 countries, and approximately half received financial aid, according to Columbia Undergraduate Admissions.

The class of 2029 is the University’s first group to be admitted after last spring’s “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” and Hamilton Hall occupation. Each event resulted in a New York Police Department sweep. Some Jewish students accepted to Columbia and Barnard last year told Spectator they declined their offers because of on-campus antisemitism concerns.

The regular decision acceptances come after the Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism announced the cancellation of $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia in a March 7 news release. The Trump administration outlined a list of preconditions for negotiations to restore the funding in a March 13 letter, including a plan for “comprehensive admissions reform.”

Columbia acquiesced to the demands on March 21 but wrote that the University’s current admission processes “comply with existing law” in an announcement from the Office of the President.

“As consistent with our practice when faced with concerns over discrimination against a particular group, we have established an advisory group to analyze recent trends in enrollment and report to the President,” the statement read, noting a “recent downturn” in Jewish and African American enrollment.

During the 2023-24 admissions cycle, the percentage of incoming Black first-year students fell from 20 to 12 percent, while the percentage of Asian American and Pacific Islander first-year students rose from 30 to 39 percent.

The class of 2029 is the University’s second after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action programs in the landmark case Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard in June 2023. The ruling prohibited colleges from using race-conscious admission policies.

In response to the decision, Columbia created the Admissions Working Group on August 23, 2023, which reviewed the University’s admission policies and examined the ways the University could expand opportunities for students from “local public high schools, community colleges, and other public institutions,” according to an announcement from then-University President Minouche Shafik.

Barnard College released regular decision acceptances for the class of 2029 on Wednesday but did not provide the acceptance rate or number of applicants.

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/887129011657642837/3002111566937755873

Yale admits 2,308 applicants to Class of 2029

 Yale’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions has completed its review of first-year applications and offered admission to 2,308 of the 50,228 students who applied to be part of Yale College’s Class of 2029. The newly admitted applicants will be joined by an additional 38 students who were admitted during the 2023-24 admissions cycle but opted to postpone their matriculation for one year. 

The cohort of admitted students includes 728 applicants who were notified of their admission in December though the Early Action program and 66 more who were admitted through the QuestBridge National College Match program.

In February, Yale Provost Scott Strobel and Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis announced an expansion in the Yale College first-year class size to 1,650, representing an additional 100 students per year. 

The change allowed the admissions committee to admit more of the exceptionally strong students who applied, said Jeremiah Quinlan, dean of undergraduate admissions and financial aid.

“I am thrilled that the change allows Yale to provide more life-changing opportunities to more students,” said Quinlan. “By expanding enrollment, we increase Yale’s excellence, broaden our graduates’ reach, and magnify their impact in communities around the world.”

Applicants for the current admissions cycle were the first to apply to Yale with a new flexible testing policy that allows students to submit one or more types of tests from four options: ACT, SAT, Advanced Placement (AP), and International Baccalaureate (IB). Applicants took advantage of the flexibility offered by the new policy and chose to apply with a range of different test types, said Hannah Mendlowitz, director of the first-year process. The admissions office will release more data on matriculating students’ test reporting choices in August when the office releases a detailed profile of the incoming class. 

Students admitted to the Class of 2029 represent all 50 states, the District of Columbia, four U.S. territories, and 65 countries. They will graduate from more than 1,575 secondary schools, and their intended majors include 83 of Yale’s undergraduate academic programs. 

In addition to an offer of admission, most of the newly admitted students will also receive a financial aid offer with a Yale Scholarship designed to meet 100% of a family’s demonstrated financial need. Currently 55% of Yale College students receive a need-based Yale Scholarship, with an average award of nearly $68,000, which is greater than the cost of tuition. In the 2024-25 academic year, Yale awarded more than $250 million in undergraduate financial aid.

Yale College does not expect parents earning less than $75,000 annually — with typical assets — to make any contribution toward the cost of their child’s education. The financial aid offers for these families, which are known as “zero parent share” offers, cover the full cost of all billed expenses — tuition, housing, the meal plan, and hospitalization insurance — as well as travel to and from New Haven. 

The admissions office invites all newly admitted students to visit campus in April 2025 for Bulldog Days, a three-day immersive experience of life at Yale, or Bulldog Friday, a one-day program offering tours, panels, academic forums, and student research presentations. Alumni groups in more than a dozen cities will host local receptions to welcome the newest Yalies, and the admissions office will host virtual events and sponsor online communities to help admitted students connect with each other. 

“Every spring, the Yale community in New Haven and around the world springs into action to showcase Yale’s greatest asset: its people” said Mark Dunn, the admissions office’s senior associate director for outreach and recruitment. “Admitted students tell us again and again that the connections they make with students, faculty, staff, and alumni are what make Yale stand out.”   

Dunn also expressed special gratitude to the student volunteers who will open their residential college suites to visiting admitted students and host special events, the faculty who will participate in the academic fair and lead master classes, and the staff who will help more than 1,500 admitted students get a taste of life at Yale during Bulldog Days and Bulldog Friday. 

The admissions office makes a special effort to provide travel funding to students from lower-income families to enable them to visit campus before finalizing their college decision. Last year more than 500 admitted students received grants to travel to campus for Bulldog Days.

Newly admitted students will have until May 1 to reply to their offer of admission.

https://news.yale.edu/2025/03/27/yale-admits-2308-applicants-class-2029

Cornell Admits 5,824 Students to Class of 2029

 Another year, another Ivy Day — student applicants around the world are celebrating their acceptance letters from Cornell.

At 7 p.m. on Thursday, regular decision results for the Class of 2029 were released to this year’s cohort of applicants. Early decision applicants already received their decisions in mid-December.

All of the Ivy League colleges release their regular decision results on the final Thursday in March, known as Ivy Day. 

In total, 5,824 students were accepted to the next freshman class, which is a 13.3 percent increase from last year’s 5,139 accepted students. Accepted applicants come from all 50 states and represent a total of 115 countries — roughly twice as many as the number represented by the Class of 2028.

Accepted students are looking forward to their new life at Cornell. Maddie Moger ’29, an early decision accepted student from Queensbury, New York, wrote to The Sun about her excitement to attend Cornell.

 “I feel honored and grateful to have been selected to attend such a prestigious university, but even more so, I feel beyond excited to start a new chapter of life at Cornell,” Moger said.

Moger is most enthusiastic about joining the “diverse community” on campus, where she can “meet new people who are completely different from [herself].”

Accepted students have until May 1 to accept their admission offers.

https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2025/03/cornell-admits-5-824-to-class-of-2029-on-ivy-day

Dartmouth accepted 1,702 students to the Class of 2029

Dartmouth accepted 1,702 students to the Class of 2029, according to the Dartmouth News. Regular decision and early decision applicants totaled 28,230, a drop of almost 11% from a year earlier.

The overall admissions rate was 6%, higher than last year’s record low of 5.3%. 

“Dartmouth has had a durable increase in application volume since 2020,” dean of admissions and financial aid Lee Coffin wrote in a Dartmouth News press release. “Our pool continues to be wide and deep, with a 32% increase over the pool we evaluated five years ago.”

This was the first admissions cycle since the reinstatement of Dartmouth’s standardized test requirement in February 2024. It also follows the College’s announcement earlier this month that tuition for the coming year would increase 4.75% to $91,935. 

Tuition at the College has steadily increased. Since the academic year starting in September 2020, tuition will have jumped 20%, from $76,480, according to a continuing disclosure document filed by the Trustees of Dartmouth College on Dec. 20, 2024.

However, 27% of admitted students this year qualified for free tuition and 310 students qualified for the Britt Scholarship — a scholarship bequest that eliminates parent contributions for families with a yearly income between $65,000 and $125,000 and typical assets. 

In total, the College offered more than $52.6 million in need-based scholarships to admitted students, with an average aid award of $70,607, according to today's release. A record high 22% of U.S. citizens and permanent residents qualified for a Pell Grant, a federal aid grant for students from low-income households. 

Students admitted through regular decision this evening will join those accepted last December through early decision and the QuestBridge program — a national access program for high-achieving, low-income students. The College aims to matriculate 1,185 freshmen. 

This is also the first cycle since the College joined the Students from Rural and Small Towns Network — which supports applicants from rural areas. According to the release, 15% of admitted students live in rural areas. 

Accepted applicants hail from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and 57 other countries.

“Dartmouth’s geographic axis continues to shift towards these important growth areas,” Coffin wrote. 

Kelsey Wang

Kelsey Wang is a reporter and editor for The Dartmouth from the greater Seattle area, majoring in history and government. Outside of The D, she likes to crochet, do jigsaw puzzles and paint.  

https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2025/03/wang-dartmouth-offers-admission-to-1702-applicants-for-the-class-of-2029

MIT Admitted 1324 Students to Class of 2029

 This year — inclusive of both Early and Regular Action — 29,282 students applied to join the MIT Class of 2029. As of (checks watch) right now, we have offered admission⁠01 to 1,324 students who have the opportunity to collectively climb the mountain that is MIT.

These 1,324 students hail from all 50 states, 62 countries, and nearly a thousand different high schools. Though their interests and aptitudes range widely — cosmology and cosplay, quantum and quilting, agriculture and archery — they are united by a shared standard of rigorous academics, high character, and a strong match with MIT’s mission to use science, technology, and other areas of scholarship to work wisely, creatively, and effectively for the betterment of humankind. We can’t wait to welcome them to convocation in Cambridge this fall, where they will join the ~4,500 outstanding undergraduates who already call MIT home.

There are also students who may be climbing other mountains, with other fellow mountaineers, next fall. Of the students to whom we do not offer admission today, we have placed a modest number on our waitlist and informed the balance that we will not be able to admit them to the Class of 2029. Getting to “meet” so many capable, compassionate students through this process has, as always, left us bleary-eyed and reminded us that what we do is more than a job: it is a privilege and an honor. We are grateful to have walked this short part of your path with you. 

If you are among the many stellar students to whom we are not offering admission, then I want to remind you success is not always a straight line. Your future isn’t something MIT creates for you, it’s something you manifest for yourself. And if you spend the next few years trying to make wherever you are as amazing as you can (as you already are), then someday you’ll look back on this Pi Day and realize it all worked out okay.⁠

I’m closing comments on this blog post to concentrate conversation in the open threads for admitted, waitlisted, and not admitted students. Answers to frequently asked questions for waitlisted students can be found here, with more information about next steps to come in early April. 

Congratulations to the Class of 2029, and best wishes to all of our applicants. No matter where you enroll next fall, please make it a better place. I know you can. I hope you will.

https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/mit-regular-action-decisions-now-available-online-2025/

Yale Admitted 728 Students in EA to the Class of 2029

 As screens lit up Tuesday evening, 728 early action applicants to Yale heard the unmistakable chant: “Bulldogs! Bulldogs! Bow, wow, wow! Eli Yale.” For these students, it was the moment they learned of their admission into Yale’s class of 2029.  

This year, Yale received 6,729 early action applicants to the class of 2029, and of those, 10.82 percent were admitted, marking one of the lowest early acceptance rates in Yale’s history. Last year, Yale admitted 9.02 percent of early applicants, the lowest early admit rate in more than two decades. 

Of the remaining applications to the class of 2029, 17 percent were deferred for reconsideration in the spring, 71 percent were denied admission, and 1 percent were withdrawn or incomplete. Deferred students will receive their final admissions decision on March 27, alongside students applying for admission on the regular timeline.

“Members of the admissions committee were impressed by the breadth and depth of achievements, experiences, interests, and ambitions among our early action applicants,” wrote Jeremiah Quinlan, dean of undergraduate admissions and financial aid, in a press release. “We look forward to considering and offering admission to many more outstanding applicants through the upcoming regular decision round.”

The class of 2029, which saw a 14 percent decrease in early applications, is the first to apply under Yale’s new test-flexible policy.

After four years of a test-optional policy that allowed applicants to decide whether to submit test scores, the class of 2029 applicants must submit standardized test scores. Applicants may select one or more types of tests from a list of four options — SAT, ACT, Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate. Those who choose to send AP or IB scores are required to include results from all subject exams that they have taken.

“The small decrease in this year’s early action applicant pool is exactly in line with what we anticipated following the change in our standardized testing policy,” wrote Quinlan.

However, compared with the 2019-20 admissions cycle, the most recent cycle in which Yale required standardized testing of all applicants, this year’s early action pool has approximately 1,000 more applications, an increase of 17 percent.

The class of 2029 is also the second to be admitted since the Supreme Court struck down race-conscious college admissions. In the class of 2028, the first admitted with race-blind admissions, Black and Latine enrollment remained stable while the share of Asian American students slightly decreased.

This admissions cycle also continues a recent trend of Yale rejecting more early applicants than it defers. The News previously reported that data suggest that the admissions office previously preferred to delay final calls on applications until the spring regular decision date. But starting with the class of 2025, the office began moving toward rejecting a larger share of applicants in the early action round itself. 

Quinlan previously said that this change was driven by two primary factors.

“First, the increase in applications,” Quinlan previously told the News. “Deferring an application means the committee has to reconsider the application going forward … [so] we are pushing ourselves to make more final decisions in the early application round. The second thing was that we heard from our colleagues in high schools across the country that it is useful to offer final decisions earlier.”

Earlier in the month, Yale College also admitted 66 students to the class of 2029 through the QuestBridge College Match, a program that connects high-achieving high school students from lower-income backgrounds with selective universities nationwide. 

Students accepted through QuestBridge receive a financial aid award that covers the full cost of tuition, housing and meals. The University also provides hospitalization insurance coverage and a $2,000 start-up grant in each student’s first year.  

QuestBridge finalists who did not match with any of the partner institutions but ranked Yale on their list of preferred schools will be automatically entered into the University’s regular decision pool. If accepted, these students will not be required to matriculate.

In April, the admissions office will invite all newly admitted students to visit campus for Bulldog Days, a three-day experience where admitted students can experience life at Yale through campus tours, panels and student performances.

Beginning in January, the admissions office will begin to review its regular decision applicants. Those students will receive their admissions decisions in March. 

The Office of Undergraduate Admissions is located at 38 Hillhouse Ave.

https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2024/12/17/yale-admits-10-8-percent-of-early-applicants/

MIT Admitted 721 in EA to the Class of 2029

 This year, 12,053 students applied early to the MIT Class of 2029, and as of *checks watch* right now, we have offered early admission to 721. Though they are all different in their own way —  mechanics and muralists, plantdads and playwrights, tenors and tinkerers  — they are united by a shared standard of rigorous academics, high character, and a strong match with MIT’s mission to use science, technology, and the useful arts to make the world a better place. We can’t wait to welcome them to campus to join the 4,535 outstanding undergraduates already enrolled at MIT. 

We deferred 7486 applicants;⁠ these students will be reconsidered without prejudice in Regular Action, with decisions released sometime in March. If you are deferred, you are not expected to send us any new information besides the February Updates and Notes Form, which will be posted in mid-January to your application portal. We have posted more information for deferred students here; you can also read posts from bloggers who were deferred here, here, here, here, here, here, and most recently here.    

Given the competitiveness of our pool, we have also informed 3,039 students that we will not be able to offer them admission this year. This decision has been made with care, and it is final. I know this can be a difficult decision to receive, but trust me: it works out okay in the end. Take a deep breath, shake it out, and go crush the rest of your college applications (or whatever else you choose to do) this year.

The balance of our applicants —  807 —  withdrew from our process before we issued their decision.  

We recognize it’s a lot of effort for all of you to apply to MIT. It’s an honor and a privilege for us to read your applications. Thank you for sharing your story with us. 

Again, congratulations to the newest members of the Class of 2029. I’ll be closing comments on this post to focus the conversations on the open threads for admitted, deferred, and not admitted students. 

All best, everyone; wishing you a healthy and happy end of 2024, and bright beginnings to 2025. 

https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/mit-early-action-decisions-now-available-online-6/