Penn again ranked as the second-least selective Ivy school, besting Cornell. Apparently, it's the year of the Tiger. Princeton University usurped Harvard University's traditional place atop the Ivy League's selectivity ladder as its admissions rate for the Class of 2003 fell to 10.8 percent from 13.1 percent last year, The Daily Princetonian reported. Harvard, meanwhile, saw its admit rate drop to 11.3 percent from last year's 12.3 percent. Of the seven schools to announce their admissions rates, all saw the number drop from last year. Columbia University has yet to announce its figures. Penn continued to rank second-to-last in admissions selectivity this year despite a significant drop in the University's rate of admission, down to 26.6 percent from 29 percent last year. Harvard's admissions director, Marlyn Lewis, said the university accepted 2,055 students out of 18,160 applicants, or 11.3 percent. And Princeton accepted only 1,600 of its 14,874 applicants this year. In terms of total applications, Princeton saw a 14.3 percent increase over last year, the biggest jump in the Ivies. With Columbia yet to announce its numbers, it is still unclear whether the New York City school or Yale University will be in the third most selective school. Last year Columbia accepted 14.2 percent of its pool, compared to 16.8 percent for Yale. This year, Yale took 15.9 percent of applicants and had the second-largest jump in the number of applications in the Ivy League. The New Haven, Conn., school admitted 2,121 students from a pool of 13,226 applicants, The Yale Daily News reported. Columbia Director of Undergraduate Admissions Eric Furda said earlier this year that the university's applications rose by more than 5 percent this year. It appears likely that the school will maintain its third-place status. The only Ivy school to report a decrease in the number of applications this year was Brown University, falling to 14,732 from 15,490 -- a 5 percent difference. The Providence, R.I., school admitted 16.8 percent of its applicant pool, according to Brown spokesperson Christin Cole. Last year Brown took 17 percent of its applicants, only 0.2 percent more than this year. Dartmouth College saw its rate of admissions fall by 0.9 percent this year, down to 20.6 percent from 21.5 percent, according to Rose Murphy, an assistant to Dartmouth Admissions Dean Karl Furstenberg. The Hanover, N.H., school's 10,259-student applicant pool was only 1 percent larger than last year's. Penn admitted 4,703 of more than 17,600 applicants this year, an admission rate of 26.6 percent. Once again, Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., ranked last among the Ivies in admissions selectivity, accepting about 32 percent of an applicant pool of slightly less than 20,000, The Cornell Daily Sun reported. Last year, Cornell took 34 percent of applicants.
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