• Admissions at some of America's most prestigious institutions have become increasingly competitive.
• Small curated programs and large applicant pools can contribute to low acceptance rates at schools.
• The California Institute of Technology is the hardest US university to get into, per 2024 data.

For some schools across the US, a low single-digit acceptance rate has become shorthand for prestige.

With increasingly accomplished high school students competing for limited spots at some of the nation's top universities, a 4.0 GPA may no longer be enough to stand out in a crowded applicant pool. At some elite colleges, admissions have only become more competitive in recent decades.

Harvard, for example, received 18,190 applications in 1996, as reported by the school's student newspaper. Only 10.9% of applicants were admitted, which, at the time, was the school's lowest acceptance rate on record.

For the Class of 2029, Harvard received 47,893 applications. The college admitted 2,003 students — a similar number of spots for prospective students as it had 30 years ago — for an acceptance rate of 4.2%.

Some of the hardest colleges to get into in the US are big-name schools with tens of thousands of students, while others are specialized, curated science or arts programs with only a couple of hundred students.

Business Insider looked at the most recent available data from the National Center for Education Statistics' College Navigator and identified the most selective schools in the country that admitted 10% or less of their applicants. These were then ranked from lowest to highest acceptance rate for the 2024-2025 school year.

For schools with the same acceptance rate, ties were broken by the number of applicants, with schools that received more applications ranking higher.

While the ranking includes some smaller, lesser-known colleges where selectivity is driven by small class sizes and tightly curated curricula, some schools with applicant pools or total student populations of under 100 were excluded from the list as their acceptance rates are not entirely comparable to those of more traditional four-year colleges and universities.

See the hardest schools to get into in America.

35. Stanbridge University

Location: Irvine, California

Acceptance rate: 10%

Student population: 2,928

Student-to-faculty ratio: 15 to 1

34. Claremont McKenna College

Location: Claremont, California

Acceptance rate: 10%

Student population: 1,393

Student-to-faculty ratio: 8 to 1

33. University of Southern California

Location: Los Angeles

Acceptance rate: 10%

Student population: 46,566

Student-to-faculty ratio: 9 to 1

32. The Juilliard School

Location: New York City

Acceptance rate: 9%

Student population: 1,073

Student-to-faculty ratio: 4 to 1

31. Barnard College

Location: New York City

Acceptance rate: 9%

Student population: 3,487

Student-to-faculty ratio: 10 to 1

30. Amherst College

Location: Amherst, Massachusetts

Acceptance rate: 9%

Student population: 1,914

Student-to-faculty ratio: 6 to 1

29. United States Naval Academy

Location: Annapolis, Maryland

Acceptance rate: 9%

Student population: 4,474

Student-to-faculty ratio: 8 to 1

28. Cornell University

Location: Ithaca, New York

Acceptance rate: 9%

Student population: 26,793

Student-to-faculty ratio: 9 to 1

27. New York University

Location: New York City

Acceptance rate: 9%

Student population: 56,832

Student-to-faculty ratio: 8 to 1

26. University of California—Los Angeles

Location: Los Angeles

Acceptance rate: 9%

Student population: 47,335

Student-to-faculty ratio: 20 to 1

25. Williams College

Location: Williamstown, Massachusetts

Acceptance rate: 8%

Student population: 2,164

Student-to-faculty ratio: 6 to 1

24. Rice University

Location: Houston

Acceptance rate: 8%

Student population: 8,961

Student-to-faculty ratio: 6 to 1

23. Northwestern University

Location: Evanston, Illinois

Acceptance rate: 8%

Student population: 23,856

Student-to-faculty ratio: 6 to 1

22. Washington University of Science and Technology

Location: Alexandria, Virginia

Acceptance rate: 7%

Student population: 1,096

Student-to-faculty ratio: 14 to 1

21. Pomona College

Location: Claremont, California

Acceptance rate: 7%

Student population: 1,700

Student-to-faculty ratio: 7 to 1

20. Swarthmore College

Location: Swarthmore, Pennsylvania

Acceptance rate: 7%

Student population: 1,623

Student-to-faculty ratio: 7 to 1

19. Bowdoin College

Location: Brunswick, Maine

Acceptance rate: 7%

Student population: 1,881

Student-to-faculty ratio: 9 to 1

18. Colby College

Location: Waterville, Maine

Acceptance rate: 7%

Student population: 2,412

Student-to-faculty ratio: 9 to 1

17. Vanderbilt University

Location: Nashville

Acceptance rate: 6%

Student population: 13,575

Student-to-faculty ratio: 8 to 1

16. Johns Hopkins University

Location: Baltimore

Acceptance rate: 6%

Student population: 30,210

Student-to-faculty ratio: 6 to 1

15. Duke University

Location: Durham, North Carolina

Acceptance rate: 6%

Student population: 17,499

Student-to-faculty ratio: 5 to 1

14. Curtis Institute of Music

Location: Philadelphia

Acceptance rate: 5%

Student population: 161

Student-to-faculty ratio: 2 to 1

13. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts

Acceptance rate: 5%

Student population: 11,886

Student-to-faculty ratio: 3 to 1

12. Dartmouth College

Location: Hanover, New Hampshire

Acceptance rate: 5%

Student population: 6,938

Student-to-faculty ratio: 7 to 1

11. Princeton University

Location: Princeton, New Jersey

Acceptance rate: 5%

Student population: 9,137

Student-to-faculty ratio: 5 to 1

10. Brown University

Location: Providence, Rhode Island

Acceptance rate: 5%

Student population: 11,956

Student-to-faculty ratio: 6 to 1

9. University of Pennsylvania

Location: Philadelphia

Acceptance rate: 5%

Student population: 29,109

Student-to-faculty ratio: 8 to 1

8. Northeastern University

Location: Boston

Acceptance rate: 5%

Student population: 32,553

Student-to-faculty ratio: 16 to 1

7. University of Chicago

Location: Chicago

Acceptance rate: 4%

Student population: 18,566

Student-to-faculty ratio: 5 to 1

6. Harvard University

Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts

Acceptance rate: 4%

Student population: 30,259

Student-to-faculty ratio: 7 to 1

5. Stanford University

Location: Stanford, California

Acceptance rate: 4%

Student population: 18,625

Student-to-faculty ratio: 6 to 1

4. Yale University

Location: New Haven, Connecticut

Acceptance rate: 4%

Student population: 15,564

Student-to-faculty ratio: 5 to 1

3. Columbia University

Location: New York City

Acceptance rate: 4%

Student population: 35,173

Student-to-faculty ratio: 6 to 1

2. Minerva University

Location: San Francisco

Acceptance rate: 3%

Student population: 669

Student-to-faculty ratio: 14 to 1

1. California Institute of Technology

Location: Pasadena, California

Acceptance rate: 3%

Student population: 2,430

Student-to-faculty ratio: 3 to 1

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