The 35 hardest colleges to get into in America

The California Institute of Technology was the hardest US school to get into in the 2024-2025 year. Kit Leong/Shutterstock Admissions at some of America's most prestigious institutions have become increasingly competitive. Small curated programs and large applicant pools can contribute to low acceptance rates at schools. The California Institute of Technology is the hardest US university to get into, per 2024 data. For some schools across the US , a low single-digit acceptance rate has become shorthand for prestige. With increasingly accomplished high school students competing for limited spots at some of the nation's top universities , a 4.0 GPA may no longer be enough to stand out in a crowded applicant pool. At some elite colleges, admissions have only become more competitive in recent decades. Harvard, for example, received 18,190 applications in 1996, as reported by the school's student newspaper . Only 10.9% of applicants were admitted, which, at the time, was the school's lowest acceptance rate on record. For the Class of 2029 , Harvard received 47,893 applications. The college admitted 2,003 students — a similar number of spots for prospective students as it had 30 years ago — for an acceptance rate of 4.2%. Some of the hardest colleges to get into in the US are big-name schools with tens of thousands of students, while others are specialized, curated science or arts programs with only a couple of hundred students. Business Insider looked at the most recent available data from the National Center for Education Statistics ' College Navigator and identified the most selective schools in the country that admitted 10% or less of their applicants. These were then ranked from lowest to highest acceptance rate for the 2024-2025 school year. For schools with the same acceptance rate, ties were broken by the number of applicants, with schools that received more applications ranking higher. While the ranking includes some smaller, lesser-known colleges where selectivity is driven by small class sizes and tightly curated curricula, some schools with applicant pools or total student populations of under 100 were excluded from the list as their acceptance rates are not entirely comparable to those of more traditional four-year colleges and universities . See the hardest schools to get into in America. 35. Stanbridge University Matt Gush/Shutterstock Location: Irvine, California Acceptance rate: 10% Student population: 2,928 Student-to-faculty ratio: 15 to 1 34. Claremont McKenna College Jim_Brown_Photography/Shutterstock Location: Claremont, California Acceptance rate: 10% Student population: 1,393 Student-to-faculty ratio: 8 to 1 33. University of Southern California bluestork/Shutterstock Location: Los Angeles Acceptance rate: 10% Student population: 46,566 Student-to-faculty ratio: 9 to 1 32. The Juilliard School Johnnie Rik/Shutterstock Location: New York City Acceptance rate: 9% Student population: 1,073 Student-to-faculty ratio: 4 to 1 31. Barnard College EQRoy/Shutterstock Location: New York City Acceptance rate: 9% Student population: 3,487 Student-to-faculty ratio: 10 to 1 30. Amherst College HantongWu/Shutterstock Location: Amherst, Massachusetts Acceptance rate: 9% Student population: 1,914 Student-to-faculty ratio: 6 to 1 29. United States Naval Academy Sean Pavone/Shutterstock Location: Annapolis, Maryland Acceptance rate: 9% Student population: 4,474 Student-to-faculty ratio: 8 to 1 28. Cornell University Jay Yuan/Shutterstock Location: Ithaca, New York Acceptance rate: 9% Student population: 26,793 Student-to-faculty ratio: 9 to 1 27. New York University Little Vignettes Photo/Shutterstock Location: New York City Acceptance rate: 9% Student population: 56,832 Student-to-faculty ratio: 8 to 1 26. University of California—Los Angeles Michael Gordon/Shutterstock Location: Los Angeles Acceptance rate: 9% Student population: 47,335 Student-to-faculty ratio: 20 to 1 25. Williams College pics721/Shutterstock Location: Williamstown, Massachusetts Acceptance rate: 8% Student population: 2,164 Student-to-faculty ratio: 6 to 1 24. Rice University Andrea Quintero Olivas/Shutterstock Location: Houston Acceptance rate: 8% Student population: 8,961 Student-to-faculty ratio: 6 to 1 23. Northwestern University Joseph Hendrickson/Shutterstock Location: Evanston, Illinois Acceptance rate: 8% Student population: 23,856 Student-to-faculty ratio: 6 to 1 22. Washington University of Science and Technology Gary Riegel/Shutterstock Location: Alexandria, Virginia Acceptance rate: 7% Student population: 1,096 Student-to-faculty ratio: 14 to 1 21. Pomona College Sandra Foyt/Shutterstock Location: Claremont, California Acceptance rate: 7% Student population: 1,700 Student-to-faculty ratio: 7 to 1 20. Swarthmore College Bo Shen/Shutterstock Location: Swarthmore, Pennsylvania Acceptance rate: 7% Student population: 1,623 Student-to-faculty ratio: 7 to 1 19. Bowdoin College Andrew Dale/Shutterstock Location: Brunswick, Maine Acceptance rate: 7% Student population: 1,881 Student-to-faculty ratio: 9 to 1 18. Colby College Feng Cheng/Shutterstock Location: Waterville, Maine Acceptance rate: 7% Student population: 2,412 Student-to-faculty ratio: 9 to 1 17. Vanderbilt University Sean Pavone/Shutterstock Location: Nashville Acceptance rate: 6% Student population: 13,575 Student-to-faculty ratio: 8 to 1 16. Johns Hopkins University tokar/Shutterstock Location: Baltimore Acceptance rate: 6% Student population: 30,210 Student-to-faculty ratio: 6 to 1 15. Duke University Bryan Pollard/Shutterstock Location: Durham, North Carolina Acceptance rate: 6% Student population: 17,499 Student-to-faculty ratio: 5 to 1 14. Curtis Institute of Music Sean Pavone/Shutterstock Location: Philadelphia Acceptance rate: 5% Student population: 161 Student-to-faculty ratio: 2 to 1 13. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Spiroview Inc/Shutterstock Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts Acceptance rate: 5% Student population: 11,886 Student-to-faculty ratio: 3 to 1 12. Dartmouth College Jay Yuan/Shutterstock Location: Hanover, New Hampshire Acceptance rate: 5% Student population: 6,938 Student-to-faculty ratio: 7 to 1 11. Princeton University gdragan/Shutterstock Location: Princeton, New Jersey Acceptance rate: 5% Student population: 9,137 Student-to-faculty ratio: 5 to 1 10. Brown University Ken Wolter/Shutterstock Location: Providence, Rhode Island Acceptance rate: 5% Student population: 11,956 Student-to-faculty ratio: 6 to 1 9. University of Pennsylvania f11photo/Shutterstock Location: Philadelphia Acceptance rate: 5% Student population: 29,109 Student-to-faculty ratio: 8 to 1 8. Northeastern University Ritu Manoj Jethani/Shutterstock Location: Boston Acceptance rate: 5% Student population: 32,553 Student-to-faculty ratio: 16 to 1 7. University of Chicago Spiroview Inc/Shutterstock Location: Chicago Acceptance rate: 4% Student population: 18,566 Student-to-faculty ratio: 5 to 1 6. Harvard University Steve Rosenbach/Getty Images Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts Acceptance rate: 4% Student population: 30,259 Student-to-faculty ratio: 7 to 1 5. Stanford University MattGush/Getty Images Location: Stanford, California Acceptance rate: 4% Student population: 18,625 Student-to-faculty ratio: 6 to 1 4. Yale University f11photo/Shutterstock Location: New Haven, Connecticut Acceptance rate: 4% Student population: 15,564 Student-to-faculty ratio: 5 to 1 3. Columbia University hapabapa/Getty Images Location: New York City Acceptance rate: 4% Student population: 35,173 Student-to-faculty ratio: 6 to 1 2. Minerva University Sean Pavone/Shutterstock Location: San Francisco Acceptance rate: 3% Student population: 669 Student-to-faculty ratio: 14 to 1 1. California Institute of Technology The Image Party/Shutterstock Location: Pasadena, California Acceptance rate: 3% Student population: 2,430 Student-to-faculty ratio: 3 to 1 Read the original article on Business Insider