Ivy League schools Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Brown, Princeton, Dartmouth and the University of Pennsylvania are among the 20 hardest colleges to get into, but a private college in San Francisco tops the list from Niche. (Shutterstock),
Related: This College Is The Hardest Of The Forbes ‘New Ivies’ To Get Into
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Minerva University, a San Francisco known worldwide for its innovative, immersive approach for future problem solvers, is also the hardest to get into, according to Niche, whose rankings focus on education and quality of life.
Minerva, which has been ranked the World’s Most Innovative University, beats out seven Ivy League schools in the top 20 when it comes to exclusivity. Only about 1 percent of students who apply are accepted to the private school with an enrollment of around 660 in 2022. Its undergraduate students live and learn in vibrant cities and attend seminar-style classes with a small group of peers while developing practical learning skills to address some of the world’s most vexing problems.
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Minerva University ranks 25th in Niche’s Best Colleges for Math in America and 26th in its Best Colleges for Business in America rankings.
Also in the top 20 and their acceptance rates are:
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No. 2: California Institute of Technology (3 percent)
No. 3: Harvard University (3 percent)
No. 4: Stanford University (4 percent)
No. 5: Columbia University (4 percent)
No. 6: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (4 percent)
No 7: Yale University (5 percent)
No. 8: Brown University (5 percent)
No. 9: University of Chicago (5 percent)
No. 10: Princeton University (6 percent)
No. 11: Duke University (6 percent)
No. 12: Dartmouth College (6 percent)
No. 13: University of Pennsylvania (7 percent)
No.14: Vanderbilt University (7 percent)
No. 15: Northeastern University (7 percent)
No. 16: Swarthmore College (7 percent)
No. 17: Pomona College (7 percent)
No. 18: Northwestern University (7 percent)
No. 19: Johns Hopkins University (7 percent)
No. 20: Amherst College (7 percent)
Three of those schools — Johns Hopkins University, Northwestern University and Vanderbilt University — are what Forbes calls “the New Ivies,” 20 public and private schools that offer good job prospects to graduates as employers turn away from the nation’s oldest and most venerable schools.
Of the 20 New Ivies, Vanderbilt University, a private college in Nashville, admits only 6 percent of applicants, making it the hardest of the New Ivies to get into. The University of Pittsburgh, a public school, has the highest acceptance rate of 50 percent.
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Related: Forbes Names 20 Colleges ‘New Ivies,’ Notes Employers Prefer Them
The New Ivies and their acceptance rates are (there may be slight differences in percentages between the two rankings due to methodology):
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Public Institutions
- Georgia Institute of Technology-Atlanta campus (16 percent)
- Purdue University-West Lafayette, Indiana, campus (50 percent)
- University of Texas at Austin (29 percent)
- United States Military Academy (14 percent)
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (44 percent)
- University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (18 percent)
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (19 percent)
- University of Pittsburgh-main campus (50 percent)
- University of Virginia-Charlottesville campus (17 percent)
- William & Mary (33 percent)
Private Institutions
- Carnegie Mellon University (11 percent)
- Emory University (11 percent)
- Georgetown University (13 percent)
- Johns Hopkins University (8 percent)
- Northwestern University (7 percent)
- Rice University (8 percent)
- Tufts University (10 percent)
- University of Notre Dame (12 percent)
- Vanderbilt University (6 percent)
- Washington University in St. Louis (12 percent)
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