Easiest school to get into

collegemom3717
Thu, 18 Feb 2016 23:16:50 +0000

‘Easiest’ is not as easy to answer as you might think

1. None of these are easy for anybody to get into.

Your list, in order from what you think is hardest to easiest:

Dartmouth
Brown
Amherst
Williams
Uchicago
Cornell
Duke
Georgetown
Northwestern

USNWR’s list, from lowest acceptance rate to highest:

Brown: 9% / 12%
UChic 9% / 10%
Duke 11% / 10%
Dartmouth11% / 8%
Northwestern 13% / 8%
Amherst 14% / 10%
Cornell 14% / 10%
Georgetown 17% / 12%
Williams 19% / 7%

Although a jump from 9% to 19% looks huge, it’s not as big as it seems. Yes from Brown to Williams is a jump, but in practical terms a strong candidate for Williams is likely to be a credible candidate for Brown: these colleges cluster and there is a lot of overlap in the applicant pool. Also, fwiw, several have big differences within them (for example, the admissions rates vary by college at Cornell)

2. The % of international students at these schools ranges from 7% to 12% (that’s the second number above). On that basis you might say that Northwestern is harder than Dartmouth but irl it mostly says that US schools just don’t take a lot of international students.

Money is a big differentiator: if you are full-pay then you won’t face the same competition for international spaces that you would at Cornell, Duke, Georgetown and Northwestern (which are not need blind and do not guarantee to meet 100% of need) and there may also be less competition for international places at UChicago or Williams (which are need aware, but meet 100% of need). On the other hand, Brown, Dartmouth, and Amherst are all very selective, need-blind and meet 100% of need, including for International students, so are likely to attract more international students.

In real life you are splitting very fine hairs with colleges at this level, and trying to work out your college list by figuring out which is ‘easier’ is unlikely to be a winning strategy.