This year, the Ivy League witnessed one of the most selective years in its history, with almost every school accepting a smaller percentage of applicants than ever before.
The number of total applicants to the Ivy League has been steadily on the rise over the past few years making it increasingly difficult to earn a spot inside an Ancient Eight classroom.
Penn Admissions Dean Lee Stetson said that the most competitive schools -- like Penn and its Ivy League counterparts -- will continue to see an increase of applicants until 2008 when the number of 18 year olds applying to college will drop.
Penn, which actually had a modest overall drop of about 370 applicants this year, admitted only 21.1 percent -- down from the previous record of 21.5 percent set last year.
University President Judith Rodin attributes Penn's increased popularity to a number of factors including increased safety in and around campus, as well as a recently revitalized Philadelphia.
Penn "is consistently ranked one of the most -- if not the most -- attractive urban campuses in the United States," she said.
Rodin added that improvements to undergraduate student housing and social hubs have enticed more students to apply to Penn.
"The variety of ways that we really did make undergraduate life the focus of the last [strategic plan]... has really paid off in the way students are applying," Rodin said.
Harvard University, which had the lowest admission rate in both the Ivy League and in its own history, lead the way by accepting only 10.5 percent of applicants -- a noticeable decline from last year's admission rate of 11 percent.
Harvard admitted only 2,068 of its record high 19,605 applicants making this its most competitive year ever.
"It was the strongest pool ever," Harvard's Admissions Director Marilyn McGrath Lewis said. "Almost everyone who applies now is a good student."
She added that Harvard's increased popularity is partly a result of its aggressive recruiting to needy families.
"We are perceived as being elitist and removed and inaccessible to families that are not wealthy," McGrath Lewis said,
She added that Harvard, which is also the only Ivy to still maintain a non-binding early action program, is able to admit fewer and fewer students because of its very high yield rate. Nearly 80 percent of those admitted to Harvard decide to matriculate compared to the expected 60 percent this year at Penn.
Yale also saw a record number of applicants this year with a total applicant pool of 15,443.
Of those applying to Yale, only 1,459 were accepted for an admit rate of 13 percent. This is down from last year's rate of 13.5 percent.
Princeton is yet again the second most selective school in the Ivy League admitting only 10.8 percent of its applicants. A total of 14,421 applied, while only 1,575 were accepted. That number is quite a large drop compared to last year's 11.7 percent acceptance rate.
Dartmouth saw a large decrease in its acceptance rate this year falling to 20 percent from last year's rate of 22.8 percent. Dartmouth admitted 2,077 of this year's 10,193 applicants.
And despite security concerns raised by the Sept. 11 terrorist attack in New York, Columbia continues to see an increase in applications and a subsequent decrease in acceptance rates.
Columbia received 14,136 applicants this year, admitting only 1,637 students and resulting in a drop from last year's acceptance rate of 12.2 percent to a low of 11.6 percent this year.
Cornell, which traditionally has the highest acceptance rate in the Ivies, also experienced a drop in its rate this year. Accepting slightly more than 5,200 of its Ivy League high 21,486 applicants, Cornell's admission rate dropped from 25.7 percent last year to this year's 24.3 percent.
Brown is the only school in the Ivy League to actually see an increase in its admission rate. The increase is primarily due to Brown's decision to drop the non-binding early action option for applicants to the class of 2006.
As a result Brown received only 14,606 applications this year, down from last year's 16,601, resulting in an increased admission rate of 16.7 percent from last year's rate of 16 percent.
As for Penn's increased popularity, Rodin suggested that it is the students who make it so popular among applicants by expressing their pleasure with Penn to their high schools.
"I think our current students sell the place for us," Rodin said. "Penn is a great place so we deserve the popularity."
