Brown accepts 14.6% of applicants for early ruling for promotion 2026

According to Dean of Admissions Logan Powell, the University accepted 896 students into the class of 2026 out of a pool of 6,146 early ruling applicants. The early acceptance rate, number of applicants, and number of students accepted were all records in the history of the University’s early decision program.

Accepting 14.6% of early applicants, the University set a record for the lowest acceptance rate on record in the early decision program for the fourth year in a row, a trend that began with the class of 2023.

Last year, the University accepted 15.9% of the first applicants – 885 in total – out of a pool of 5,540 students. At the time, all three statistics set university records; this year, all three numbers have been eclipsed.

Fifty-one percent of admitted students identified as students of color, up from 48% last year and 44% the year before. Seventeen percent identified as first generation, a slight increase from 16% in 2020.

Fifty-four students have been admitted through the QuestBridge program for low-income and first-generation students, a jump from the 45 students last year. The early decision of the liberal medical education program accepted 23 students, an acceptance rate of 3%, according to Powell.

The cohort of students admitted early this year saw a decline in the proportion of students who said they would apply for financial aid compared to last year: 57% of students admitted this year said they would. a request, compared to 59% last year and 62% year before.

Initiatives that will make college free for most students with families earning less than $ 125,000 a year have likely been announced too close to the deadline to impact the early decision-making pool, Powell said – but he added that he believed they would have an effect in the regular pool of contenders for the decision.

The pool of candidates for early decision-making has grown in recent years: the size of the pool of candidates has more than doubled since 2012, when 3,010 students applied the advance ruling. In the past five years alone, the pool has grown 76%, said Powell. Likewise, the cohort of students admitted early has grown steadily since 2012, when only 558 applicants were accepted early.

Powell said the university’s virtual and in-person outreach has likely helped the pool of applicants grow this year, alongside the national awareness of a number of university professors during the pandemic, including Ashish Jha , dean of the School of Public Health, and Megan Ranney, director of the Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health.

Work done by other professors in the economics department may also have helped spur growth, said Powell, pointing to economics professors John Friedman and Emily Oster as well as economics professor Jesse Shapiro, which won a MacArthur “engineering grant” in September. . Some candidates even cited Friedman’s work on economic mobility as the reason they applied to Brown, Powell added.

“We’ve always had rockstar teachers,” he said. “I think the visibility and leadership in some of these areas that are now so present in the public mind, in matters related to the economy and public health – these really amplify our presence as a extremely positive way. “

Economics topped the list of planned concentrations, followed by biology, computer science, engineering and political science.

Admitted students come from 43 states as well as Washington, DC, Guam and Puerto Rico. Students from 47 countries were also accepted, with the largest number coming from China, UK, Canada, India, Brazil and Singapore.

“What inspired us is the diversity of perspectives and the remarkable academic talent” of this class, added Powell.

Another change this year, said Powell, has been an increase in the number of students rejected as opposed to deferred. The University rejected 60% of the first applicants, while 25% were referred for consideration as part of the normal decision-making process. Last year, the University deferred 30% of the first applicants.

“It’s hard for us to say no to so many amazing college students, especially when they said Brown was their first choice,” said Powell. “But we want to be clear with the (rejected) students that we are making the same decision now that we would be making in March. If we don’t see that there is an admission route now, as difficult as it may be, we still want to give them some clarification on their options in college. “

The 2026 admissions cycle promotion is the third to be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. But this year’s contestants, Powell said, have “seen it all” with the virus: They were in high school when schools closed, experienced a virtual school and lockdowns, and experienced uncertainty after vaccines emerged. and variations.

“COVID has certainly touched the lives of every candidate in different ways,” said Powell, but the candidates have worked to “build bridges and connections” throughout the pandemic.

“They saw that members of their community felt a sense of isolation,” he added. “A lot of applicants have spoken very candidly about how they want to be that person in their community who has reconnected. “

Many applicants also wrote about ways to engage in civil dialogue in response to the University’s second supplemental essay topic on Dealing with Philosophical Disagreements and Civil Discourse.

The third additional essay, Powell said, circled the topics that made the contestants happy.

“It lifted the spirits of all of us at the admissions office,” said Powell. “And I hope that has boosted the morale of the candidates.”

In the Ivy League, Dartmouth saw a slight decline in early applications and maintained the same 21% acceptance rate as last year. Yale too saw a slight decrease in early applications, with a slight increase in the acceptance rate from 10.5% to 10.9%. The first admission notices from Penn and Harvard came out at 7 p.m. today.

Colombia decided not to publicly disclose its early admission rates, but did announce a slight drop in the number of applications received. Cornell has stopped posting advance acceptance rates in 2020 as an effort to emphasize the holistic nature of the process. Stanford University stopped making announcements in fall 2018.