Haverford College admitted a record-low 16.1% of its Class of 2023 applicants. The school received nearly 5,000 applicants. These applicants represented 40 states and 32 foreign countries. Furthermore, 49.2% of those applicants self identified as students of color.
Jess Lord, Vice President & Dean of Admission and Financial Aid at Haverford College, explains, “I think that there’s a snowball effect. [As college] becomes harder to get into, students apply to more places, [and] that makes it even harder to get in. And then schools are to varying degrees really falling in love with having really low admit rates and using that as a marker of prestige. I mean, it’s hard not to see that as a marker of prestige, but it’s a little bit of a trap for institutions if you’re going to put a lot of effort into generating applicant pools just to deny more people. You could question the integrity of that. And I’m not pointing fingers at any particular institutions-I think that it’s a real challenge for people on my side of this process and institutions to really navigate the right balance.”
