University of Rochester comes in at #46 on the US News & World Report’s list of “Best National Universities.” While the school offers both Early Decision I and Early Decision II, there is not much data provided on their Early Decision acceptance rates, for the Class of 2030 or many of the years before. We hate to see that lack of data; most schools report their Early Decision acceptance rates alongside Regular Decision rates in their annual Common Data Set. But over the years, the University of Rochester’s Common Data Sets have been published quite sparingly, which is frustrating to see.

Past University of Rochester Early Decision I and Early Decision II Admissions Statistics

We always call for further data transparency in the college admissions process; if Ivy Coach could wave a magic wand and get all the statistics, you know we would! The below data is what we were able to scrape together for the University of Rochester in terms of their past Early and Regular Decision admissions rates. 

Now, what’s particularly weird about their numbers for the Class of 2028, which we’re sure you’ll also take note of if you are a frequent reader of our college admissions blog, is that their combined ED I and ED II admission rate is lower than the Regular Decision rate. Does that make sense to you? Because it certainly doesn’t make sense to us! 

Maybe the University of Rochester doesn’t quite understand how Early Decision works. Students who apply Early Decision are willing to make a binding commitment to that school should they be accepted; why would the University of Rochester not give those committed students an advantage in the admissions process? How could they do that? Have a look and see for yourself:

Admissions Cycle	University of Rochester Class Year	Early Decision I and II Admission Rate	Regular Decision Admission Rate
2025-2026	Class of 2030	Not Reported	Not Reported
2024-2025	Class of 2029	Not Reported	Not Reported
2023-2024	Class of 2028	38.1%	40.0%
2022-2023	Class of 2027	Not Reported	Not Reported
2021-2022	Class of 2026	Not Reported	Not Reported
2020-2021	Class of 2025	45.0%	40.5%
2019-2020	Class of 2024	Not Reported	Not Reported
2018-2019	Class of 2023	Not Reported	Not Reported
2017-2018	Class of 2022	Not Reported	29.5%
2016-2017	Class of 2021	Not Reported	Not Reported
2015-2016	Class of 2020	Not Reported	Not Reported
2014-2015	Class of 2019	Not Reported	Not Reported

Breakdown of the Rochester’s Class of 2030 Admits

We don’t have compiled information on the acceptance rate for University of Rochester’s Class of 2030, and we may never get that information based on the school’s historical close-to-the-chest tendencies. Mysterious! However, Early Decision acceptance rates are typically going to be higher than Regular Decision rates.

However, the University of Rochester seemed to ignore this trend completely by only accepting 527 out of 1,385 students who applied Early Decision to their Class of 2028. But those students were dedicated to attending the University of Rochester, were they to be accepted! Why would a school turn down committed students? Unless those Early Decision applicants really just weren’t qualified enough to be admitted at all, but an overall 40% acceptance rate for the Class of 2028 isn’t that exclusive. 

The University of Rochester did manage to get it right for the Class of 2025, when the acceptance rate was 5% higher in the Early Decision round than in the Regular Decision round, but that’s still not a very large margin. 603 out of 1,341 eager Early applicants were accepted, while 7,924 applicants in the Regular round were offered admission out of almost 20,000 (19,543, to be exact). And those seem to be the only two years with comprehensive data released that we can use as a benchmark. So we can assume that the Early Decision and Regular Decision acceptance rates for the Class of 2030 will hover somewhere around 40%, but there’s no way to confirm this for now, and two years isn’t exactly our ideal sample size for analyzing a data pool. 

Ivy Coach’s Assistance with a Rochester Deferral or Rejection

If you’ve been deferred from the University of Rochester’s Class of 2030, take heart: it’s not over yet! We want you to know that you still have time to craft a compelling Letter of Continued Interest and sway admissions officers to reconsider your application. 

On the other hand, if you were in fact rejected from the University of Rochester, you may be feeling at a bit of a loss. What to do now? Well, we’ll tell you: buck up, correct any application mistakes, and move forward with a strong application to other schools (schools you may even like more than the University of Rochester!).

If you’re excited about optimizing your case for admission to the University of Rochester’s Class of 2030 post-deferral or to another school post-rejection, fill out Ivy Coach’s complimentary consultation form. We’ll then be in touch to outline our next step services, which include a PostMortem for rejected candidates and a PostMortem followed by assistance in crafting a powerful Letter of Continued Interest for deferred candidates.