Yale’s acceptance rate reaches its lowest point in recent history
Jordan Fitzgerald
Staff Reporter
Yale Daily News
Yale College admitted 2,234 students to the class of 2026 from its largest-ever pool of 50,015 applicants, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions announced on Thursday.
The acceptance rate for the 2021-2022 admissions cycle is 4.46 percent, the lowest in recent history. It dropped from 4.62 percent for the class of 2025, 6.54 percent for the class of 2024 and 5.91 percent for the class of 2023.
Of the admitted students, 800 received their acceptances through early action and 81 matched with Yale through QuestBridge in December. Yale also offered 1,000 students seats on the college’s waitlist Thursday. The class will be joined by 46 students who were admitted during last year’s cycle but chose to defer their matriculation to fall 2022. Earlier this semester, the Admissions office reported that 50,022 students applied to Yale, but this number included these 46 students who postponed their attendance and excluded 39 students who were granted application extensions due to extenuating circ*mstances.
Admitted members of the class of 2026 hail from 49 states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam and 58 countries. Yale denied admission to 44,783 applicants, and 1,998 applications were incomplete or withdrawn.
“The applicant pool’s strength and diversity are always more important to the admissions committee than its size,” Jeremiah Quinlan, Yale’s dean of undergraduate admissions and financial aid, said. “By these measures, the students who were admitted to Yale College this cycle are truly extraordinary. The committee was deeply impressed by their academic and extracurricular achievements, their wide-ranging intellectual curiosity, and the positive contributions they have already made to local and global communities.”
According to Director of Undergraduate Admissions Margit Dahl, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions accommodated the deluge of applications by hiring more staff members and spending more time reading applications and holding committee meetings. Nevertheless, she maintained that the office retained its “whole-person review process” for all applicants, despite the workload.
Dahl emphasized that “in the end, it is all about the individual student and their fit with Yale.”
The number of applications was not the only thing that set this newly-admitted class apart. The class of 2026 is the third cohort of admitted students to receive their acceptances during the COVID-19 pandemic. They are the second to apply without a standardized test requirement, which Yale originally suspended for the 2020-2021 admissions cycle due to pandemic-related challenges.
Nevertheless, this year’s class of admitted students will be the first group to be invited to New Haven for Bulldog Days — an admitted students program that showcases academic and extracurricular life at Yale — since the class of 2023 came to Connecticut in 2019. The event, which was held remotely during the last two admissions cycles, is set to run April 25-27.
Quinlan said that he and his colleagues are eager to see the event return to campus after two years of virtual programming.
“For decades, Bulldog Days has been a special experience for both admitted and current students,” Quinlan said. “I am excited to re-establish this important campus tradition and am grateful to the countless students, faculty, and staff across Yale College who will help to make this year’s event a success.”
Admitted students from low-income backgrounds are eligible for funding that will enable them to travel to campus for Bulldog Days.
Director of Undergraduate Financial Aid Scott Wallace-Juedes emphasized that the Class of 2026 will be the first to benefit from four years of new financial aid support. These changes, which the Office of Undergraduate Admissions and the Office of Financial Aid announced in October, include eliminating what Yalies dubbed the “student income contribution,” covering the marginal tax rate for international students and subsidizing childcare for student parents.
Wallace-Juedes said that “for most students receiving financial aid, this new policy will reduce costs and increase the amount of Yale Scholarship by $7,500 over four years.”
The 2022-2023 academic year will also be the first in which Yale meets 100 percent of demonstrated financial need for Eli Whitney students, students who have taken non-traditional paths to higher education.
Admitted students must respond to their offers of admission by May 2.
