RD Acceptances at Ivies

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To use Harvard as an example, they accept about 2000 students per year out of roughly 48,000 applications. Until recently, they would take roughly 1000 during the SCEA round and 1000 during the RD round. However, in recent years, they have stopped sharing the breakdown between SCEA and RD acceptances. It's fair to assume that the odds of acceptance for an unhooked applicant to Harvard in Regular Decision are astronomically low.

I suspect the numbers are similar for Princeton and Yale. And Dartmouth is very tiny. Unhooked students basically have no chance at these schools in RD.

Cornell seems like the only ivy that is somewhat accessible for smart unhooked students in RD, followed by Columbia. But in reality, smart and accomplished unhooked students are generally not going to ivy schools these days.

Yale admits about 35% of total admitted students in SCEA:
https://news.yale.edu/2025/12/17/yale-admits-779-early-action-applicants

[Anonymous]

DC was admitted to Ivy RD a few years ago. DCPS.

[Anonymous]

Not so at our private.

Dartmouth and Yale are extremely hard.
Others not so much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not so at our private.

Dartmouth and Yale are extremely hard.
Others not so much.

Funny, both love our Baltimore private. Princeton, for which it was a feeder throughout the 20th century, does not.

With respect to ED, I would say that about half to two thirds of the Ivy acceptances come early and the rest RD. Typically at least two are accepted to all the Ivies but often more, especially at Dartmouth, Yale, and Cornell. The exception is Princeton where one kid gets in every two to three years. Stanford seems to only be early while MIT and CalTech is typically RD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not so at our private.

Dartmouth and Yale are extremely hard.
Others not so much.

Funny, both love our Baltimore private. Princeton, for which it was a feeder throughout the 20th century, does not.

With respect to ED, I would say that about half to two thirds of the Ivy acceptances come early and the rest RD. Typically at least two are accepted to all the Ivies but often more, especially at Dartmouth, Yale, and Cornell. The exception is Princeton where one kid gets in every two to three years. Stanford seems to only be early while MIT and CalTech is typically RD.

imo this is all school dependent.
Some years it's a drought, and some years we see Stanford, Harvard and Brown RD acceptances (I know that's a rarity).
Early is always better and RD to Ivy is a LONGSHOT, but so is everything in T10/20 once you get to RD. At our school, kids who do well in selective RD tend to stand out and be a little different than just an extremely strong candidate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:After looking at our high schools acceptance scatterplots, I noticed almost no one gets in at RD. At best, applicants get waitlisted to schools like Dartmouth, Brown, Columbia, UPenn. Most are just rejected to Harvard/ Yale. Does anyone else’s school experience this? Is this all due to yield protection?

lmao

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To use Harvard as an example, they accept about 2000 students per year out of roughly 48,000 applications. Until recently, they would take roughly 1000 during the SCEA round and 1000 during the RD round. However, in recent years, they have stopped sharing the breakdown between SCEA and RD acceptances. It's fair to assume that the odds of acceptance for an unhooked applicant to Harvard in Regular Decision are astronomically low.

I suspect the numbers are similar for Princeton and Yale. And Dartmouth is very tiny. Unhooked students basically have no chance at these schools in RD.

Cornell seems like the only ivy that is somewhat accessible for smart unhooked students in RD, followed by Columbia. But in reality, smart and accomplished unhooked students are generally not going to ivy schools these days.

Yale admits about 35% of total admitted students in SCEA:
https://news.yale.edu/2025/12/17/yale-admits-779-early-action-applicants

But I guess the remaining 65% is not going to private school students in RD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not so at our private.

Dartmouth and Yale are extremely hard.
Others not so much.

Funny, both love our Baltimore private. Princeton, for which it was a feeder throughout the 20th century, does not.

With respect to ED, I would say that about half to two thirds of the Ivy acceptances come early and the rest RD. Typically at least two are accepted to all the Ivies but often more, especially at Dartmouth, Yale, and Cornell. The exception is Princeton where one kid gets in every two to three years. Stanford seems to only be early while MIT and CalTech is typically RD.

imo this is all school dependent.
Some years it's a drought, and some years we see Stanford, Harvard and Brown RD acceptances (I know that's a rarity).
Early is always better and RD to Ivy is a LONGSHOT, but so is everything in T10/20 once you get to RD. At our school, kids who do well in selective RD tend to stand out and be a little different than just an extremely strong candidate.

"Stand out" as in how? How are they different?

[Anonymous]

I dunno -- my totally unhooked daughter didn't want to commit too soon so didn't apply ED or even EA anywhere. Rejected Dartmough but admitted RD at Columbia and Cornell. It can happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I dunno -- my totally unhooked daughter didn't want to commit too soon so didn't apply ED or even EA anywhere. Rejected Dartmough but admitted RD at Columbia and Cornell. It can happen.

Is she in a public or private school? And what state?

[Anonymous]

Checking the Class of 2025 at my public MCPS HS, we had 2 students get accepted to Ivies on RD. One to Cornell and one to Columbia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Checking the Class of 2025 at my public MCPS HS, we had 2 students get accepted to Ivies on RD. One to Cornell and one to Columbia.

Is that 2 students out of hundreds?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Checking the Class of 2025 at my public MCPS HS, we had 2 students get accepted to Ivies on RD. One to Cornell and one to Columbia.

Is that 2 students out of hundreds?

2 out of 4 who applied RD to ivies at my HS

[Anonymous]

Little mention of Brown in this thread. Any thoughts on Brown ED vs RD?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Little mention of Brown in this thread. Any thoughts on Brown ED vs RD?

Heavily school-dependent. If you are in MoCo, they LOVE MoCo public school kids in ED. There are so many MoCo ED admits this year, its shocking. At the DMV privates, its really just crickets from most in comparison.