Selectivity rises in Ivy League

The University admitted only 10.8 percent of applicants for the Class of 2006, making this year's process one of the most competitive on record, Dean of Admissions Fred Hargadon said in an e-mail.

Harvard University, which admitted 10.5 percent of applicants, edged out Princeton as the most selective Ivy League school as the majority of schools across the league posted lower acceptance rates than last year.

Harvard, Yale University, Dartmouth College, the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University and Columbia College have all sent out a surprisingly high number of rejection letters.

Hargadon said last week that the University will be inviting many more musicians and dancers into the Class of 2006, in addition to many international students and minorities.

"I have no doubt that [the Class of 2006] will be plenty bright, plenty talented and plenty interesting, as have been the preceding classes here at Princeton," he said.

Dartmouth, which saw the largest increase in applicants for the Class of 2006 in the Ivy League, also saw an increase in international and minority students in its applicant pool of 10,193.

Of those, Dartmouth accepted 2,077, admissions director Maria Laskaris said. This competitive pool drove Dartmouth's admit rate down from 22.8 percent to 20 percent.

Despite fear of New York since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Columbia's applicant pool increased and the admittance rate dropped by a half a percentage point from last year, said Chris Leavell, assistant director of admissions.

Columbia admitted 1,637 students from 14,137 for the Class of 2006 and mailed acceptance letters to 11.5 percent of total applicants.

Among other reporting universities, Harvard saw the lowest admit rate of 10.5 percent, slightly lower than last year's 10.7 percent, Harvard spokeswoman Andrea Shen confirmed.

Harvard, after seeing a slight increase in applications, denied admission to more than 17,500 students. This year, Harvard notified the 2,068 accepted students by e-mail.

Penn also communicated to students electronically. Penn saw its most competitive admissions cycle for entry into the Class of 2006.

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This year, Penn accepted 3,690, a little more than 20 percent of the total number of applicants, which decreased from the applications for the Class of 2005, according to the office of Dean of Admissions Willis Stetson.

Harvard, Penn and Yale initiated or continued using electronic notification systems to alert applicants of their results.

Yale's admission rate dropped by half a percentage point from last year to an all-time low of 13 percent, welcoming 1,459 of the 15,443 applicants, the Yale Daily News reported. Yale Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Richard Shaw was unavailable to confirm figures.

Brown University, which ended its nonbinding early action program this year, was the only Ivy with a higher acceptance rate than last year.

Of the 14,521 applicants for 2006, 1,575 were offered admission, Hargadon said. Of those, 585 were admitted through the early decision program.

Admitted students have until May 1 to commit.

Brown Dean of Admissions Michael Goldberger attributed the higher acceptance rate to the university's recent transition from a nonbinding early application to an early decision program that drew fewer students.

This change forces students to commit to Brown if they are offered admission in mid-December.

Early applications to Brown dropped from 5,200 last year to 1,900 this year, causing an overall decrease in applications compared to last year.

Overall, Brown received 14,606, down from 16,601 for the Class of 2005, Goldberger confirmed. Though the number of applications dipped by nearly 2,000, the acceptance rate only rose from 16 percent to 16.7 percent, a Brown press release said.

Goldberger and other Brown officials say that they worried that recent international conflicts would cut into overseas applicants. However, he said that this was not the case at Brown.

"The predictions that there would be a decline in international applications never happened," he said.

Though Cornell had a slight drop in applications for the Class of 2006, the admission rate across Cornell's seven schools managed to drop from 25.7 percent to 24.3 percent, the Cornell Daily Sun reported. Cornell rejected slightly more than 10,000 students.

Cornell admissions director Doris Davis was unavailable to confirm the figures.