While admissions data is still being finalized, with so many of the big name universities having already released their regular decision data for the class of 2029 many students and families are curious about what trends have begun to emerge in the world of selective college admissions.
From Harvard to Amherst, MIT to Brown, the most highly selective universities have all begun to release their data and shape the trends that will trickle down to affect the rest of the colleges across the country.
Test Optional? Test Required?
While the past few years saw a number of colleges and universities respond to the unique challenges of the Pandemic by adopting test optional policies for their applicants, 2025 seems to be steadily heading in the opposite direction. While Dartmouth made a splash last year in returning to test requirements in its admissions policies, this year we saw more and more peer institutions also follow this trend. Harvard and Brown are two of the biggest, and most selective, universities to follow in Dartmouth’s wake which should factor into the admissions plans for students who are eyeing a route to acceptance at a number of the most selective colleges in the nation. With the recent changes to the testing formats of both the SAT and ACT, students should begin to craft their test prep plan and testing schedule even earlier than anticipated in order to make sure that they are fully prepared for the testing requirements and standards of the universities they plan on applying to.
Super Selective Universities that Require Testing:
University: |
Location: |
| Brown University | Providence, RI |
| California Institute of Technology | Pasadena, CA |
| Cornell University (Fall 2026) | Ithaca, NY |
| Dartmouth College | Hanover, NH |
| Georgetown University | Washington, D.C. |
| Harvard College | Cambridge, MA |
| Johns Hopkins University | Baltimore, MD |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Cambridge, MA |
| Stanford University (Fall 2026) | Stanford, CA |
| University of Pennsylvania | Philadelphia, PA |
The Super Selective Gets Even More Competitive
Over the past few years we’ve witnessed admission rates across the nation continue to drop at a steady rate. While this phenomenon is true for almost all colleges and universities, it is especially impactful when focusing on the most competitive universities over the same period of time.
Take NYU for example, three years ago they boasted a competitive but still somewhat reasonable acceptance rate of 12.46%; this year they stand at a much trimmer 7.7%. Notre Dame, a perennial powerhouse in academia went from a similar 12.87% to a svelte 9%. Even taking a look at the Ivies, who have routinely existed in the single digit acceptance rates over recent times, have also seen an almost 2% average drop in acceptance rates to an unbelievably low average of roughly a 5% acceptance rate across the cohort.
For students and families interested in similarly competitive institutions it is imperative to begin your academic and extracurricular preparation as soon as you can in high school to create the type of profile that will stand out in a sea of similarly competitive students to these schools. Whether it is course selection, identifying summer opportunities, creating your own clubs, or even preparing for the barrage of standardized testing ahead of you, starting earlier always makes the pathway forward that much easier.
More Applications Leads to More Competition
As admission rates have continued to fall, the college landscape has seen an expected increase in the number of applications being submitted across early and regular application rounds. At many universities their early, regular, and overall application numbers are steadily increasing to the point of record highs being seen, which only makes it much more difficult for students to stand out in a pool. Take NYU for example, this year set a new application record at over 120,000 students throwing their hat in the ring for possible admission; a near 3% increase over the previous year’s numbers. Of those applicants, 25,000 students took advantage of the Early Decision application round in order to maximize their chances of admission; an increase of roughly 10% over the previous year. With only 6,500 students being accepted for admission across the university’s three campuses, the competition on campus and at other peer institutions has never been more fierce.
So what now?
While many of the trends we’ve seen emerge this year from the most competitive of universities paint a landscape of high competition, low acceptance rates, and a return to more data focused requirements for admission, there is still a pathway forward for many students and families whose hearts are tied to the cream of the crop institutions in higher education.
However, the pathway towards acceptance is one that should not, and often can not, be walked alone. The changes to required standardized testing and the updated formats of the SAT & ACT require students to not only take progressively challenging courses throughout high school but also to leverage expert tutoring to achieve the best scores possible. The rising application numbers and lowered acceptance rates seen across the landscape of college admissions requires students to lean into the expert knowledge, strategy, and guidance that is available to them in order to make the best choices to obtain a breadth of options in their admission journey.
And Galin Education is here to help. In and out of the classroom we offer services backed by some of the industries best and brightest professionals to make sure that our clients are able to position themselves in the best way possible to compete in the most selective application pools, and obtain a range of acceptances to provide them with the choices they’ve always dreamed of at the collegiate level.
