Harvard Admitted 1942 Students for the Class of 2027

 Harvard College admitted 3.41 percent of applicants to the Class of 2027, marking the second-lowest admissions rate in the College’s history.

The College’s Admissions Office notified 1,220 students of their acceptances in the regular decision cycle at 7 p.m. Thursday. The admitted students join 722 applicants accepted through the College’s early action program in December, totaling 1,942 admitted students from a pool of 56,937 applications.

This year’s acceptance rate reflects a slight increase from last year’s record-low acceptance rate of 3.19 percent, with a 7 percent decrease in the total number of applications from last year’s all-time high of 61,220 applicants.

Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67 said in an interview Thursday that he believes the Class of 2027, like every admitted class, is “unique.”

“Our admissions committee would say the proof in all this is the individuals we recruited, first of all — from around the country and around the world — and then ended up over a long period of time, admitting,” Fitzsimmons said.

“Now, of course, we hope they’ll choose to come here,” he added.

African American or Black students comprise 15.3 percent of applicants admitted to the Class of 2027, a decrease from 15.5 percent last year. The proportion of Latinx students admitted dropped to 11.3 percent from 12.6 percent in the year before. Just over 2 percent of admits are Native American, a drop from 2.9 percent last year. Native Hawaiian students made up 0.5 percent of accepted students this year, a drop from from 0.8 percent last year.

Harvard admitted the highest ever proportion of Asian American applicants at 29.9 percent, marking a 2.1 percentage point increase from the 27.8 percent accepted to the Class of 2026.

“It’s been part of a long-term trend,” Fitzsimmons said. “The percentages have been going up steadily. It’s not a surprise.”

The uptick comes in advance of the Supreme Court’s decision on a lawsuit against Harvard brought by Students for Fair Admissions, an anti-affirmative action group that claims the College’s race-conscious admissions policies discriminate against Asian American applicants.

Legal scholars widely expect the Court’s strong conservative majority to overturn affirmative action, with a decision expected in late spring or summer.

Students admitted to the Class of 2027 come from all 50 states and 102 countries. Roughly 22 percent of admits hail from the Mid-Atlantic, 17.4 percent from the South, 15.9 percent from New England, 17 percent from the Western/Mountain region, 10.1 percent from the Midwest, and 15.8 percent from U.S. territories and abroad.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/3/31/admissions-decisions-2027/