Schools Are Slower to Report Early Applications

At this time last year, we had already reported on Early Decision / Early Action figures at the University of Virginia, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University, and Boston College. So far this year, we’ve reported on Early Action figures at Yale University and the University of Virginia. So why exactly hasn’t Duke, BC, or UNC yet released their Early application figures for the Class of 2026? Allow us to speculate.

As our loyal readers may remember, Ivy Coach’s famously accurate crystal ball predicted that while applications to America’s elite universities would be strong this year, they would not be quite as strong as last year. Sure, these schools might well receive the second most applications in the history of their institutions, but it doesn’t exactly slip off the tongue to boast that a school received the second most applications ever, does it? So these schools may not be so eager to put out press releases since, unlike last year, they can’t brag that they received record hauls of applications.

We previously reported that UVA did indeed receive a record tally of Early Decision as well as Early Action applications to its Class of 2026. And Yale received the second most Early Action applications in the school’s history. Yet we have yet to report the Early application tallies at the other seven Ivies or at Duke, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, the California Institute of Technology, Vanderbilt University, Washington University in St. Louis, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Chicago, and other elite institutions. And why? Because they’ve yet to report their Early data. Let’s see if that changes sometime soon!