Harvard has consistently ranked near the top throughout the survey’s 24-year history. Although it was dethroned last year by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), this year’s revival suggests that sustained controversy has done little to dent its appeal.
While admissions for the incoming fall cohort are still being finalized, Harvard has only become more competitive over the years. Of the nearly 48,000 applications to its class of 2029—who started this past fall—only about 2,000 were admitted, an acceptance rate of around 4%. By comparison, the acceptance rate 18 years ago was about 9%.
For many Harvard students, the payoff of making it through the rigorous application process appears to be tangible.
“Even in a market where families talk constantly about cost, practicality, and ROI, the schools that continue to dominate the imagination are still the ones with the strongest prestige, signaling power, alumni networks, and global brand value,” Nguyen told Fortune.
For all the allure of the Ivy League, those institutions represent a sliver of the American college experience—and the broader picture is more conflicted.
Cost anxiety has become the defining concern of the application process. The plurality of student and parent respondents in this year’s Princeton Review survey, 35%, cited impending debt levels as the biggest concern about the college application process. That’s a dramatic shift from the survey’s early years: in 2003, only 6% of respondents chose cost as their top concern.
“We’re talking about six-figure salaries for people who are building chip factories or computer factories or AI factories.”
