By Sarah Burnett
Everyone has always joked about how it’s “impossible” to get into an ivy league. But this year, it actually came pretty close to it. There has been a dramatic drop in college acceptance rates this year, because most colleges became test optional for the 2020-2021 admissions cycle. There was a large increase in the number of applicants this year, yet the number of accepted students stayed the same; Especially for ivy league colleges.
It has always been extremely difficult to be accepted into an ivy league. Before the pandemic struck, the highest acceptance rate for an ivy was at a mere 14% (Cornell), and the lowest acceptance rate was 5.2% (Harvard). It can also be noted that Stanford, which is not an ivy league, had an acceptance rate at around 5-6% in previous years.
For the class of 2021, the acceptance rates for ivies, and Stanford, were at a record low. This year was the most competitive admissions cycle in the history of college admissions. Cornell still had the highest acceptance rate this year, but it dropped down to around 8%. Harvard had the lowest acceptance rate at 3.4%, with Columbia not far behind at 3.5%. Princeton and Yale both admitted less than 5% of applicants this year, with Princeton having a 3.9% acceptance rate, and Yale having a 4.6% acceptance rate. Stanford’s acceptance rate also fell to a record low of 3% this year.
So why did the acceptance rates drop so low? Well, that’s all thanks to schools becoming test-optional. Due to the pandemic, many students were unable to take the SAT and ACT more than once, and a few were actually unable to take the test at all. For some students, their scores were not as high as they would’ve liked, yet they didn’t have another chance to get their score higher. As a result, almost every college in America got rid of the SAT/ACT requirement.
All ivy league colleges became test optional, which caused a dramatic increase in the number of applicants; So much so, that the Ivy League committee actually had to push back regular decision-day from March 26th to April 6th. Even though the number of applicants increased, the number of admitted students stayed the same. When River Hill senior Love Patel, who applied to 4 ivy leagues, was asked if he felt whether or not he had a better chance at being accepted into an ivy league this year, he believed that “I did, but at the same time I didn’t. Even though this allowed for students to feel as if they had a better shot at getting accepted into an ivy league, everyone had that same mindset. You have to remember that even before the pandemic, there had already been a downward trend of ivy league acceptances throughout the years.”
As for next year, all of the Ivy league colleges have extended their test optional policy to include the current high school class of 2022. Even though correlation does not imply causation, it is safe to say that the acceptance rates will continue to go down with time, especially if the colleges don’t require test scores anymore. Junior Simon Hu stated that “I am not surprised that with these current circumstances, that it’s going to be another year of test-optional admissions. I am kind of bummed because I worked really hard to get a good SAT score, but it’s going to help a lot of other students who weren’t able to have the opportunity to even take one of the tests once.”
Overall, when colleges became test optional for the class of 2021, there came a record number of hopeful applicants- especially with ivy league colleges. This lead to record low acceptance rates, which will probably be very similar for the class of 2022.