U. admits 6.46 percent of applicants for Class of 2020

The University has offered admission to 1,894 students out of an applicant pool of 29,303 candidates, marking a record-low acceptance rate of 6.46 percent.

This year’s applicant pool is also the largest the University has seen to date, breaking the record number of 27,290 set by the class of 2019.

Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye explained that theOffice of Admissionhas been making efforts to recruit students from every socioeconomic background, which might have contributedto the large applicant pool this year.

“We’re doing more outreach to students,” she added.

Of the 1,894 admitted students, 785 were accepted in the early application process. The single-choice early action acceptance rate was18.6 percentfrom a pool of 4,229 candidates. The number of students admitted from regular admission was 1109, and the acceptance rate for regular decision candidates, including those who were deferred in early action and accepted in the regular pool, is 3.8 percent.

“The admit rate is reflecting the fact that we’ve had this large applicant pool," Rapelye noted. She added that the expected class size for the Class of 2020 is 1,308 students.

Of the admitted students, 49.5 percent are women and 50.5 percent are men. 50.6 percent of students have identified themselves as students of color, which includes biracial and multiracial students.

Rapelye noted that admitted students come from 49 out of the 50 U.S. states.

International students comprise 11.7 percent of the accepted students, representing 66 different countries including Armenia, Bhutan, Uganda, Guatemala, Morocco and Bosnia, Rapelye said. This is a decrease from last year’s 13 percent.

Legacy students make up 11.2 percent of the admitted students. Athletes recruited for varsity sports comprise 11.9 percent of the admitted students.

Students who are the first in their families to attend college make up 17.5 percent of the admitted students, which marks an increase from last year’s 15 percent, according to Rapelye. In addition, Rapelye stated that 63 percent of admitted students come from public high schools.

Rapelye noted that her office have taken many steps to reach out to first-generation students and students from low-income backgrounds. The effort includes working with various community based organizations throughout the country and recruitment efforts with many consortial schools and the College Boards to make the University more accessible in the application process, she explained.

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This year, 21.2 percent of the accepted students indicated on their applications that they intend to study engineering, 43.9 percent of which are women.

The applicant pool included students from 9,876 high schools in 151 different countries, Rapelye noted. This is an increase from last year’s 9,500.

Rapelye said that 1,237 candidates have been offered a spot on the waitlist. She noted that students can choose whether they would like to remain on the waitlist, and that the waitlist may be about half of its current size by May, as some students choose not to stay on the waitlist.

“A waitlist decision is, ‘You’readmissible, we just don’t have enough beds,’” Rapelye explained,“I hope we can go to the waitlist, but we won’tknow until afterMay 1.”

She said that the Office of Admission will let students know about their status on the waitlist on a rolling basis betweenMay 1 and June 30.