3 Things EA/ED Results Indicate About What to Expect on Ivy Day
On Thursday, March 27th, students around the world will receive news that has been four years in the making—the results of their Ivy League applications. The Ivy League schools release their admissions decisions annually on a Thursday at the end of March that has come to be known as “Ivy Day,” with many other top schools releasing their decisions just on or around that date as well. Unfortunately for students anxiously awaiting their decision notifications, there is no surefire way to predict what Ivy Day will hold; however, the trends that emerged from the Early Action (EA) and Early Decision (ED) rounds can offer insights into what to expect when those Ivy Day notifications go live.
Which schools are becoming more selective? Which institutions are prioritizing socioeconomic diversity? How are changes in standardized testing policies impacting applicant pools? Each year, early admissions results provide a preview of shifts in the elite college admissions landscape. These early indicators help us to predict how the regular decision round will unfold and reveal broader trends shaping the future of college admissions.
Here’s what this year’s early results can tell us about what to expect on Ivy Day 2025:
Application Numbers Are Declining at Some Top Schools
Though top schools have been receiving exponentially increasing numbers of applications over the past few years, this past early admissions cycle indicated that we may see smaller application pools for the Class of 2029—in large part due to the reinstatement of standardized testing policies at many Ivy League schools. For instance, Brown University received 1,196 fewer applicants in the early round, a shift the school’s Associate Provost for Enrollment and Dean of Admission Logan Powell attributed to the reinstatement of the standardized testing requirement this year. Likewise, Yale reported a 14% decrease in early applications, dropping to 6,754 from 7,856 last year. Jeremiah Quinlan, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid, similarly explained that this “small decrease in this year’s early action applicant pool is exactly in line with what we anticipated following the change in our standardized testing policy.”
Students can expect that these smaller applicant pools will result in higher admissions rates (for instance, Yale’s early admissions rate was 10.82%, almost two percentage points higher than the record-low early rate of 9.02% in the last cycle). Yale, in particular, may also see a higher overall acceptance rate as a result of their increased incoming freshman class size. However, in general, higher admissions rates do not necessarily mean that it is becoming easier to get into an Ivy League school—instead, it indicates that the reinstatement of testing requirements has led to slightly thinner but more academically qualified applicant pools.
At the same time, it is important to note that this was not the case at every school in the early application cycle. Dartmouth, which also reinstated a standardized testing policy for the Class of 2029, received the same number of early applications as it did for the Class of 2028, when the school had a test-optional policy: 3,550.
Top Schools Are Releasing Qualitative—Rather Than Quantitative—Admissions Data
During the early admissions cycle, Harvard broke years of precedent by opting to withhold quantitative admissions data until the conclusion of the admissions cycle, joining Princeton, Dartmouth, and Penn in doing so. Students should only expect to see comprehensive data from Yale, Cornell, and Brown, and some data from Columbia, which only published the number of applications received during the early round for the class of 2029. The movement away from the publication of their single-digit acceptance rate comes as Ivy League schools seek to distance themselves from the high pressure associated with the admissions process, as well as their reputations for elitism and selectivity.
However, while qualitative data such as number of applicants and acceptance rates may be sparse, expect top schools to highlight qualitative data about the diversity—particularly the socioeconomic diversity—of their incoming classes.
Following the Supreme Court's ruling against race-conscious admissions, Harvard University saw a decrease in Black student enrollment. Additionally, according to a NYTimes study, the number of students not disclosing their race doubled at many universities, as applicants expressed general concern over the role that bias and discrimination may play in admissions evaluations. As universities strive to balance diversity initiatives and a need for more diverse applicant pools within the constraints of the Supreme Court’s decision, socioeconomic diversity has been a key metric touted by top universities in the early admissions process. For instance, Dartmouth announced that 18% of their early admits were first generation students; meanwhile, 19% of those admitted early at Brown were first-gen. Applicants can expect the regular decision releases to include information about Pell Grants, first-gen students, and students from rural regions.
Top Schools Outside of the Ivy League Become More Competitive
In the midst of a fraught and transitional period in the Ivy League, other second-tier schools are becoming exponentially more competitive and desirable. The early admissions round indicates that students should pay particular attention to the “Southern Ivies,” including Duke, Emory, Rice, and Vanderbilt. Emory University, for example, received 21% more ED applicants this year than last year. The school accepted 995 of its 3,311 applicants—30%. Duke, too, received 6% more early applicants than last fall, marking its largest ED pool in its history. Vanderbilt saw a 16% increase in Early Decision applicants, accepting 13.2%—a decrease from last cycle’s 15.2%. Outside of these schools, Northwestern, which also chose to maintain a test-optional policy, received just over 6,000 applications, 15.5% more than last year. This was one of Northwestern’s largest pools in recent years. While the Ivy League distances itself from low admissions rates, these competitive schools could take their place as institutions synonymous with low, single-digit admissions rates.
When is Ivy Day?
Ivy Day typically falls on the last Thursday of March, though the decision date was postponed to Tuesday, April 6th in 2021 due to a significant influx of applications following the disruptions caused by Covid-19 in 2020. Typically, Ivy League universities post their decisions to students’ school-specific applicant portals and via email simultaneously around 7 p.m. EST. Historically, Ivy Day has fallen on the following dates:
What colleges release results on Ivy Day?
The final weeks of March are a critical period in the application process, as most top schools release their decisions on or around Ivy Day. While all of the Ivy League schools—Princeton, Harvard, Yale, UPenn, Dartmouth, Cornell, Brown, and Columbia—will release their results on this date, other top schools may follow suit. Here are ten other schools whose results you can expect by April 1st:
Originally published on Forbes