Top Colleges See Record-Low Acceptance Rates

A bunch of acceptance rates are out, and it looks like some of the top schools (but not all) had record-low rates this year.

Harvard: A record-low 7 percent of applicants were accepted, down from 7.9 percent last year. That's just 2,046 of 29,112 applicants. The school saw a 6 percent increase in the total number of applicants.

Columbia: The university saw a 13 percent rise in the number of applicants (a record 25,428), resulting in a record-low 9.8 percent acceptance rate this year.

MIT: The school saw a 17 percent increase in applicants, and its admittance rate dropped to a record low of 10 percent, with 1,597 students out of 15,661 applicants admitted.

Brown: In its "most selective year ever," the institution admitted 10.8 percent of its applicants. The number of applications rose 21 percent over last year. In total, 2,708 of 24,988 applicants were admitted.

Dartmouth: The school has admitted 12 percent of its record 18,130 applicants.

Duke: The university accepted a record-low 17 percent of applicants after seeing a 17 percent increase in applications. "We'll be denying and wait-listing people that we may have easily admitted a year or two ago," said the dean of undergraduate admissions. "In terms of talent, broadly defined, this is the best class we've ever seen. And that's made possible by a larger applicant pool."

University of Pennsylvania: The school accepted 17 percent of its applicants this year, roughly the same as the year before.

University of Virginia: 29 percent of applicants were offered admission, compared with 35 percent last year. The total number of applicants rose 17 percent over last year.