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Yale University Admissions

Students sit on a lawn in front of gothic architecture at Yale University.

Located on a beautiful Gothic-style campus in historic New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University is one of the most prestigious postsecondary institutions both in the world and within the Ivy League. Yale has a reputation for educating the world’s political, economic, and cultural leaders: five former U.S. presidents call themselves alumni, along with several foreign heads of state, 263 Rhodes Scholars, and 31 living billionaires. Between a student body of 6,600 undergraduates and 5,300 postgraduates, Yale draws the best and brightest to take part in a centuries-long legacy of academic excellence.

Schools in the Ivy League run the gambit of levels of academic rigor, and Yale, arguably, sits at the top of this spectrum, along with Columbia. But perhaps surprisingly, Yale College has no core curriculum. 80 possible majors are offered, each of which contain their own curricular requirements fulfilled by choosing from roughly 2,000 undergraduate courses. All students must complete distribution requirements in the humanities and arts, the sciences, and the social sciences, and “skill area” requirements, which consist of courses in writing, quantitative reasoning, and foreign language acquisition. This approach encourages flexibility, risk taking, and the cultivation of genuine academic passions. 

The centerpiece of undergraduate social life at Yale is the residential college system. Established in 1933 and modeled after the constituent colleges at Cambridge and Oxford, Yale’s 14 residential colleges provide housing, amenities, dining halls, and social events for nearly all undergraduates. The typical first question Yale alumni will ask when meeting one another is to which college they were affiliated. 

Student organizations on campus have storied histories as some of the oldest in the country within their respective categories, such as the Yale Literary Magazine (the oldest student literary magazine in the country), The Yale Record (the world’s oldest humor magazine), and The Yale Daily News (the oldest daily college newspaper in the country). Intramural and collegiate sports teams play each season, but Yale’s athletic spirit is highest when the football team faces off against Harvard at the Harvard-Yale game each fall. When it comes to parties and elite organizations, Yale boasts both Greek life and a bevy of secret societies (which we’d love to tell you more about, but alas, they’re well-kept secrets!). 

Yale was founded in 1701 by Harvard alumni who feared that their alma mater was slipping away from the tenets of Puritan orthodoxy on which it was founded. Thus, Yale’s early years were marked by a curricular focus on ancient languages and biblical texts for the sons of New England’s elite. In the nineteenth century, Yale expanded its graduate offerings, first with the School of Medicine in 1810, and then the Divinity and Law Schools in 1822. Yale awarded the first Ph.D. in the U.S. in 1861. Women were allowed to enroll as undergraduates in 1969 after university administration declined an invitation to merge with sister school Vassar College, opting for their own coeducational path.

Today, the country’s third oldest institution of higher education is known for its library of 15 million volumes, its history of influential faculty such as Nobel Prize-winning biologist Sidney Altman, and Nobel Prize-winning poet Louise Gluck, and its renown in nearly all major areas of higher learning. For admission to the Class of 2027, Yale admitted a slim 4.5% out of 52,303 applicants, giving it one of the lowest college acceptance rates in the world. The Yale College Undergraduate Admissions states that they look for applicants who “pursue what [they] love and tell us about that,” or applicants who will make the most out of the vast resources afforded to them. In other words, they want to ensure that prospective students are passionate enough to seek out and succeed at the sorts of opportunities that will be available on campus. Luckily for you, Ivy Coach is here to help you convey that you’re this very student who is worth taking a chance on!

Yale University Admissions Statistics

Yale University Overall Accept. Rate Regular Decision Accept. Rate Regular Decision Apps Accepted Regular Decision Apps Received Early Decision / Action Accept. Rate Percent of Class Filled by Early Apps Early Decision / Action Apps Received Early Decision / Action Apps Accepted Expected Number of Students to Enroll Total Apps Received Total Apps Accepted
2027 4.35% 3.22% 1,433 44,506 10.89% n/a* 7,744 842 1,554 52,250 2,275
2026 4.47% 3.17% 1,353 42,727 12.09% n/a* 7,288 881 1,554 50,015 2,234
2025 4.60% 3.40% 1,332 38,996 10.50% n/a# 7,939 837 1,554 46,935 2,169
2024 6.50% 5.10% 1,508 29,443 13.80% n/a* 5,777 796 1,554 35,220 2,304
2023 5.90% 4.50% 1,384 30,827 13.20% n/a* 6,016 794 1,554 36,843 2,178
2022 6.30% 4.70% 1,387 29,573 14.70% n/a* 5,733 842 1,782 35,306 2,229
2021 6.90% 5.00% 1,401 27,814 17.10% n/a* 5,086 871 1,550 32,900 2,272
2020 6.30% 4.40% 1,177 26,795 17.00% n/a* 4,669 795 1,360 31,455 1,972
2019 6.50% 4.70% 1,210 25,544 16.00% n/a* 4,693 753 1,360 30,237 1,963
2018 6.30% 4.60% 1,200 26,182 15.50% n/a* 4,750 735 1,360 30,932 1,935
2017 6.70% 5.30% 1,342 25,090 14.40% n/a* 4,520 649 1,350 29,610 1,991
2016 6.80% 5.30% 1,300 24,670 15.70% n/a* 4,304 675 1,355 28,974 1,975
2015 7.40% 5.70% 1,245 22,025 14.50% n/a* 5,257 761 1,310 27.282 2,006
2014 7.50% 5.90% 1,210 20,607 13.90% n/a* 5,262 730 1,310 25,869 1,940
2013 7.50% 5.20% 1,209 23,088 13.40% n/a* 5,557 742 1,310 26,000 1,951
2012 8.30% 5.60% 1,007 17,925 18.10% n/a* 4,888 885 1,320 22,813 1,892
2011 9.60% 7.30% 1,151 15,729 19.70% n/a* 3,594 709 1,340 19,323 1,860
2010 8.60% 6.50% 1,099 17,015 17.70% n/a* 4,084 724 1,310 21,099 1,823
2009 9.70% 7.60% 1,176 15,515 17.90% n/a* 3,933 704 1,310 19,448 1,880
2008 9.90% 8.20% 1,280 15,628 16.60% n/a* 4,046 670 1,300 19,674 1,950
2007 11.40% 9.60% 1,458 15,120 21.30% n/a* 2,611 557 1,295 17,731 2,015

n/a* = not applicable since an EA policy was in place
n/a# = not applicable since an EA / ED policy was not in place

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