EssayLens

College lists

The most selective colleges

These are the colleges with the lowest acceptance rates, the true reaches where strong grades and scores are the baseline, not the differentiator. At this level, what separates admits is the rest of the application: the essays, the depth of one or two activities, and a clear sense of who the student is.

Build a balanced list: a reach school should be one of several, not the whole plan. Pair every school here with targets and at least one safety. The chances calculator will sort your whole list into safety, target, and reach for you.

50 schools on this list

Caltech admits 3% Harvard admits 4.2% Princeton admits 4.4% UChicago admits 4.5% Vanderbilt admits 4.7% Duke admits 4.8% Penn admits 4.9% Tsinghua admits 5% Northeastern admits 5.6% Dartmouth admits 6.0% NUS admits 6% Bowdoin admits 6.5% Amherst admits 6.8% Pomona admits 6.9% Colby admits 7% Northwestern admits 7% Swarthmore admits 7.4% Williams admits 7.4% NYU admits 7.7% Rice admits 8% Cornell admits 8.4% UCLA admits 8.7% Barnard admits 9% St Andrews admits 9% TU Munich admits 9% CMC admits 9.6% USC admits 10% Tufts admits 10.5% Carnegie Mellon admits 11% Cooper Union admits 11% UC Berkeley admits 11.6% Emory admits 12% Georgetown admits 12% Georgia Tech admits 12% HKU admits 12% Notre Dame admits 12% WashU admits 12% UVA admits 12.5% Boston College admits 12.6% Cape Town admits 13% Davidson admits 13% Harvey Mudd admits 13% Hamilton admits 13.6% Wellesley admits 13.7% Middlebury admits 13.9% Haverford admits 14% Imperial admits 14% Johns Hopkins admits 14% Oxford admits 14% Tulane admits 14%

See your real chances at every one of these.

Build my college list

More college lists

Test-blind colleges 18 Test-optional colleges 165 Colleges that still require test scores 76 Colleges where the essay matters most 77 Colleges that decide on the numbers 21 Colleges that no longer consider legacy 167 Public universities with the biggest in-state advantage 63 Accessible colleges with high acceptance rates 42 Colleges that track demonstrated interest 31 Colleges that weigh character most heavily 90