Admission into the most exclusive universities in the United States is fiercely competitive, as top schools like Caltech now accept just 3% of applicants.
The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) tops the Business Insider ranking of the 35 U.S. universities with the lowest acceptance rates. During last year’s admissions cycle, the university received nearly 11,300 applications but enrolled only 300 first-year students.
Students attend a commencement ceremony at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California, June 2026. Photo from the university’s Facebook page |
Also posting a 3% acceptance rate is Minerva University, which ranks second due to its extremely small incoming class of just over 100 students each year.
Many of the institutions on the June list boast prestigious reputations and long histories, including all eight Ivy League universities.
Others are highly specialized schools in science or the arts that admit only a few hundred students annually, such as the Juilliard School and the Washington University of Science and Technology.
Most of the universities rank among the top 50 U.S. research universities or the top 25 liberal arts colleges, with the exception of several unranked institutions, including some arts schools.
| Rank | University | Acceptance rate | Tuition (US$/year) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California Institute of Technology (Caltech) | 3% | 65,600 |
| 2 | Minerva University | 3% | 29,800 |
| 3 | Columbia University | 4% | 70,200 |
| 4 | Yale University | 4% | 69,900 |
| 5 | Stanford University | 4% | 67,700 |
| 6 | Harvard University | 4% | 59,300 |
| 7 | University of Chicago | 4% | 73,300 |
| 8 | Northeastern University | 5% | 70,200 |
| 9 | University of Pennsylvania | 5% | 65,700 |
| 10 | Brown University | 5% | 71,700 |
| 11 | Princeton University | 5% | 68,100 |
| 12 | Dartmouth College | 5% | 71,700 |
| 13 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | 5% | 64,300 |
| 14 | Curtis Institute of Music | 5% | – |
| 15 | Duke University | 6% | 73,200 |
| 16 | Johns Hopkins University | 6% | 67,200 |
| 17 | Vanderbilt University | 6% | 67,900 |
| 18 | Colby College | 7% | 75,800 |
| 19 | Bowdoin College | 7% | 74,300 |
| 20 | Swarthmore College | 7% | 79,800 |
| 21 | Pomona College | 7% | 71,700 |
| 22 | Washington University of Science and Technology | 7% | 68,200 |
| 23 | Northwestern University | 8% | 70,600 |
| 24 | Rice University | 8% | 71,100 |
| 25 | Williams College | 8% | 76,300 |
| 26 | University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) | 9% | 54,900 |
| 27 | New York University (NYU) | 9% | 65,600 |
| 28 | Cornell University | 9% | 71,300 |
| 29 | U.S. Naval Academy | 9% | – |
| 30 | Amherst College | 9% | 75,300 |
| 31 | Barnard College | 9% | 73,100 |
| 32 | The Juilliard School | 9% | 57,200 |
| 33 | University of Southern California (USC) | 10% | 74,300 |
| 34 | Claremont McKenna College | 10% | 75,300 |
| 35 | Stanbridge University | 10% | 149,600 (entire program) |
Annual tuition ranges from US$29,800 to US$79,800. Stanbridge University lists tuition for the entire degree program rather than by academic year. The Curtis Institute of Music provides full scholarships to all students, while the U.S. Naval Academy charges no tuition because it is fully funded by the federal government.
The ranking is based on data from the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics. Where institutions share the same acceptance rate, they are ranked by the number of applications received, with universities attracting more applicants placed higher.
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