This blog post takes a deep dive into the admission rates of the most prestigious universities from the United States and the United Kingdom and how this information can inform a student's application strategy. It is designed to assist those high school students around the world who are considering applying to universities from the Ivy League, the Golden Triangle and other top institutions to make informed choices with a reasoned admissions strategy to maximise their chances of success.
The Data of UK & US Admissions to Elite Universities
First let us consider the raw data of the most competitive US and UK universities at undergraduate level.
US Universities | Acceptance Rate (%) | Domestic Acceptance Rate (%) | International Acceptance Rate (%) |
Harvard University | 3.4 | 3.4 | 2.5 |
Stanford University | 3.9 | 4.2 | 3 |
California Institute of Technology (CalTech) | 3.9 | 4 | 3.5 |
Columbia University | 3.9 | 3.9 | 2.5 |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | 4.1 | 4.6 | 3 |
Princeton University | 4.4 | 4.8 | 3.2 |
Yale University | 4.5 | 5 | 3.8 |
Duke University | 5.9 | 6 | 4.5 |
University of Pennsylvania | 6 | 6.3 | 4.5 |
University of Chicago | 6.5 | 6.7 | 5 |
UK Universities | Acceptance Rate (%) | Domestic Acceptance Rate (%) | International Acceptance Rate (%) |
London School of Economics (LSE) | 9 | 9 | 7 |
King's College London | 11 | 12 | 8 |
Imperial College London | 13 | 13 | 12 |
University College London (UCL) | 14 | 15 | 12 |
University of Oxford | 17 | 18 | 8 |
University of Cambridge | 18 | 19 | 9 |
University of Warwick | 24 | 25 | 8 |
University of St Andrews | 25 | 30 | 10 |
University of Edinburgh | 30 | 48 | 10 |
University of Durham | 41 | 45 | 20 |
Based on the data above:
(1)The top US universities are noticeably more competitive than their UK counterparts. This assessment comes with the following caveats:
(i) The figures for the UK are an average of all the courses, which have widely varying acceptance rates with Computer Science, Medicine and Economics regularly amongst the most competitive subjects with around a 5% acceptance rate, compared to Music, Modern Languages and Classics which have much more favourable admission statistics. To demonstrate this disparity in course competitiveness, we have selected some courses from the Oxford University undergraduate admissions statistics in the table below.
Course | Acceptance Rate (%) |
Computer Science | 5 |
Economics and Management | 5.1 |
Medicine | 7.9 |
Mathematics | 9.4 |
Physics | 11.2 |
Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) | 11.4 |
History | 17.3 |
English | 21 |
Chemistry | 28 |
Music | 32 |
Modern Languages | 33 |
Materials Science | 42 |
Classics | 42 |
(ii) The UK has an earlier filtering system for domestic students through the use of GCSEs and predicted A-Level grades. This means that UK students apply to universities already with a significant part of their grades completed or predicted, so that only those who stand good chances of success will apply to the top universities.
(2) International students face steeper tougher acceptance rates than domestic students in general. Even with superlative grades, many international students are disadvantaged by their high school qualifications: UK high school qualifications are especially designed to follow on to UK university courses and US high school qualifications are especially designed to follow on to US degree courses. It is often the case that students applying from abroad must achieve comparatively higher grades in their respective qualifications than domestic students. Universities also face pressure to balance the ratio of domestic vs international students.
(3) The Ivy league and Oxbridge do not dominate admissions as much as is commonly thought. In the US, Caltech, MIT and the University of Chicago often appear higher in league tables than Ivy League colleges in a number of key areas (MIT in STEM subjects is an obvious example). Likewise in the UK, the top London universities are even more competitive than Oxford and Cambridge; this partly due to a far higher proportion of international applications to LSE, Imperial, UCL and King’s.
Forming a Strategy for University Applications
When it comes to forming a successful strategy for university applications, the conclusions from the data above can help inform the set of universities which a student may apply to, in order to maximise their chances of studying at an elite institution.
There are of course several considerations beyond this to make when deciding between universities, and whether US or UK institutions better suit the culture, academic and future job aspirations of each student.
US universities, for example, are renowned for their holistic approach to education: students must study a wide range of subjects across both the Humanities and Sciences, with students accruing credits for each course they take, and specialisation only occurring to a limited extent, through the selection of a “Major”, towards the end of their degree.
UK universities on the other hand are renowned for their specialisation and academic rigour. Students select just one, or possibly two subjects to study for their entire degree, making them particularly well suited to students who have a passion in a particular area, as well as for those who envisage continuing their studies at postgraduate level. Whilst they are particularly good for academic subjects, such as pure Sciences and traditional Humanities subjects, due to their specialisation they can be considered sometimes less focussed on acquiring skills for the world of work.
A full breakdown of such considerations when choosing between the two can be found in our article here.
As discussed when analysing the data, UK students apply to universities already with significant information on their final examination grades, and so can be more confident in the range of universities they are likely to be successful for, and the UK system is geared towards this. The US system however has a much more involved application process. Applications to US universities are generally therefore much more involved and time consuming, which needs to be kept in mind when deciding the number of applications a student is making. A student should consider their available time and ensure that they can dedicate a significant amount to each of their US applications. There is a tradeoff here between performing to the best of one’s ability in each application, and making sufficient applications to optimise one’s chances of being accepted in at least one or two.
We have given a fuller idea of the US application process and how to best prepare for success in our article here.
By taking all these factors into consideration, along with the application data above for institutions and their subjects, a student can put together a list of universities to apply to. At Witherow Brooke we generally recommend having two or three “aspirational” institutions, a similar number of institutions which are still competitive but best in line with a students current academic results, and then one or two which the student would still be happy to study at but have higher acceptance rates.