Another Competitive Year in Admissions

Yale University registered the lowest rate of admissions for the Class of 2008, only admitting 9.9 percent of applicants, 1,950 students in total. For Yale, this year's decision marked a record low in rate of admissions from a record-high number of applicants, with a total of 19,674 students applying.

Harvard reported an admittance rate of 10.3 percent with 2,029 students admitted, compared to their record low of 9.8 percent last year.

For the first time in history, Harvard admitted more women than men to the Class of 2008, by a small margin of 1,016 women admitted to 1,013 men.

Princeton admitted 1,631 students for the Class of 2008. This represents an admissions rate of 11.9 percent, up from last year's 9.9 percent.

The total percentage of applicants accepted at Penn was 21 percent. Only Cornell registered a higher admissions rate, admitting 28.7 percent of the 20,800 applications received.

Brown University reported a slight increase in total number of applications this year and admitted 2,412 students, an admissions rate of 15.8 percent, nearly a point increase from 14.9 percent in 2003.

Columbia saw its rate of admissions fall to 10.5 percent of applicants accepted for a total of 1,590 students, a slight decrease from last year's rate of 10.8 percent. The decrease in rate of admissions came on the heels of an increase in total admissions from 2003.

Rounding out the Ivy League, Dartmouth College accepted 2,143 students to the Class of 2008, reporting an admissions rate of 18.3 percent, up from 17.5 percent last year.

Ivy League schools saw increases in average SAT scores across the board. Dartmouth reported a jump of 15 points in combined scores from the previous year, with an average of 1457.

Many Ivies also reported increases in the number of minority applicants admitted. Harvard set records for percentages of blacks and Latinos admitted. Cornell reported that 33 percent of those students admitted identify themselves as students of color.

Students from all 50 states were represented in the pool of students admitted for every Ivy school, as well as a plethora of countries from six continents.