Early applications to Harvard University were down 17% in December, meaning that fewer students were willing to commit to the Ivy League school in Cambridge, Mass., as their first choice. According to data released by Harvard on Thursday, applications overall were down 5% compared to last year.
Harvard accepted 1,937 of 54,008 applicants (3.58%) for the freshman class this fall—the class of 2028. “This marks the fourth consecutive year Harvard has received more than 50,000 applications,” the university touted, noting that it had accepted 692 students who applied in the “Early Action Program” in December and 1,245 students in regular admissions.
Last March, Harvard announced that it had accepted 1,220 applicants via regular admission and 722 early applicants for the class of 2027, out of 56,937 total applicants. The 1,942 admitted students represented a 3.4% admission rate—about 5% lower than this year’s admission rate.
Harvard’s applicant pool for the incoming freshman class is the lowest “to the storied, 387-year-old Massachusetts institution since 2020, which coincided with the start of the COVID pandemic,” the New York Post reported.
Rabbi David Wolpe, who stepped down in December from an antisemitism advisory panel at Harvard, told JNS that the smaller application pool reflects mistreatment of Jews on campus.
“I have no doubt that the tumult and the anti-Jewish agitation have persuaded some that they would fare better at another school,” said Wolpe, rabbi emeritus of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles.
