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It’s much harder for girls to get into the Ivy League. The surprising gender gap uncovered.

Author

Goalseye Team
November 23, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

A close look at the Class of 2026 acceptance data from Ivy League and highly-selective colleges reveals vast differences between male and female applicant pools.

Ivy League Acceptance Rates by Gender:1

Women

Men

Admissions rate gap for male applicants

Brown University

4.80%

7.40%

54%

Harvard University

3.40%

4.70%

38%

Yale University

4.30%

5.50%

28%

Princeton University

4.20%

5.80%

38%

Columbia University

3.70%

5.10%

38%

University of Penn

4.80%

6.30%

31%

Dartmouth College

6.20%

8.10%

31%

Cornell University

8.70%

10.50%

21%

Note: The acceptance rates and applicant pool percentages are based on data from the 2022-2023 admissions cycle.

What This Means for Applicants:

Brown University, in particular, exhibited the most significant gender gap in acceptance rates. For the Class of 2026, Brown received 50,649 applications, with 31,710 from women and 18,939 from men—a difference of nearly 13,000. Brown has the largest gender gap in acceptance rates among all the Ivy League schools, making it unique in consistently receiving a higher volume of applications from women over the past two decades.2

During the 2022-2023 admissions cycle, more than 300,000 applicants applied to Ivy League schools, of which 55-60% of them were women. This consistent trend highlights that more women apply to Ivy League institutions compared to men, making it more difficult for female applicants to gain admission since admissions officers aim to gender-balance class sizes.

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