The University accepted 879 students to the class of 2027 from a pool of 6,770 early decision applicants, wrote Logan Powell, current dean of admission and incoming associate provost for enrollment, in an email to The Herald. Applicants were informed of their decisions Tuesday evening.
Accepting approximately 13% of early applicants, the University set its lowest-ever acceptance rate in the early decision program for the fifth year in a row. Roughly 1,286 students — 19% of early decision applicants — were deferred, and will receive decisions from the University along with regular decision applicants on March 30. The remaining 68% of applicants were rejected.
This was the largest pool of students to apply early decision to Brown on record, with a 10.2% increase from last year’s number.
“We remain deeply humbled by the depth of academic talent in this applicant pool, as well as the breadth of lived experiences,” Powell wrote. “This amazing group of students will make a positive impact at Brown and on the world.”
Last year, the University accepted 14.6% of early decision applicants — 896 total — from a pool of 6,146 applicants, setting records across those categories at the time, The Herald previously reported. Those statistics were surpassed with this year’s early decision process.
Applicants are not required to submit a standardized test score during this year’s application cycle, though the University has not announced its policy for next year.
Fifty-one percent of admitted students identify as female, and 49% identify as male. The University reports gender on a binary scale per federal requirements. There were 62 applicants accepted through the QuestBridge program for low-income and first-generation students, surpassing 54 students admitted early last year.
Just 3% of those who applied early to the University’s Program in Liberal Medical Education program were accepted.
Sixty-two percent of those accepted Tuesday applied for need-based financial aid, a jump from 57% last year, while 15% of those admitted identify as first-generation, a decrease of 2% from last year’s cohort of students accepted early decision.
A slight majority of students admitted attend public schools, with 53% attending public high schools and 47% attending independent and parochial schools — though students from all types of schools applied for financial aid, Powell wrote.
Admitted students from the early decision applicant pool represent 50 nations, 44 U.S. states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. The countries most represented outside of the United States are Canada, China, the United Kingdom, Brazil, South Korea, Turkey and Ukraine. Among geographic regions in the United States, the largest group of admitted students hails from the South.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the total number of early decision applicants. The Herald regrets the error.
Jack Tajmajer is a Metro editor who oversees the Beyond Brown beat. He is a Senior from Bethany, Connecticut and Bethlehem, New Hampshire studying Political Science and Economics. His mother operates an alpaca farm and he tried a blueberry for the first time at age 17.
