Many schools will be experiencing an unremarkable admissions cycle this academic year, following several years of skewed numbers due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As recent national news coverage has indicated, Harvard’s current cycle is anything but unremarkable. This past summer, the Supreme Court ruled that Harvard’s race-based admissions practices were unconstitutional. And Harvard’s Early Action admissions data released on December 14th is our first look into how this landmark decision which shook the elite college admissions landscape has impacted the Ivy League university.

Out of a pool of 7,921 Early Action applicants to the Class of 2028, Harvard admitted 692 students for an EA acceptance rate of 8.74%. While this is the highest EA acceptance rate since the Class of 2024, it is still the fourth-lowest in the university’s history. 

Of the students who did not earn admission in the Early Action round to Harvard’s Class of 2028, 83% of applicants were deferred, while 7.7% were denied (we at Ivy Coach have long called out Harvard for stringing so many students along to the Regular Decision round — they should deny more applicants and cut the cord!).

Harvard Early Action Admissions Statistics Over 10+ Years

Last year, Harvard admitted 7.56% of Early Action applicants. For the Class of 2026, Harvard admitted 7.87%, and for the Class of 2025, Harvard admitted 7.4%. These historically low EA acceptance rates reflect increased applicant pools during the pandemic, supercharged by overconfident applicants we’ve coined Squeakers (students who think they can sneak in without SAT or ACT scores). For the Class of 2024 and earlier years, the acceptance rate stayed above 13%.

Below is a breakdown of Harvard’s Early Action admission statistics over the last 13 years:

Harvard Class Year	Early Action Applications Received	Early Action Acceptances	Early Action Acceptance Rate
Class of 2028	7,921	692	8.74%
Class of 2027	9,553	722	7.56%
Class of 2026	9,406	740	7.87%
Class of 2025	10,086	747	7.4%
Class of 2024	6,424	895	13.9%
Class of 2023	6,958	935	13.4%
Class of 2022	6,630	964	14.5%
Class of 2021	6,473	938	14.5%
Class of 2020	6,173	918	14.9%
Class of 2019	5,919	977	16.5%
Class of 2018	4,692	992	21.1%
Class of 2017	4,856	895	18.4%
Class of 2016	4,231	722	18.2%

Breakdown of the Harvard Class of 2028 Admits

In what is likely a defensive move, Harvard did not release demographic data based on race for the Early Action admits to the Class of 2028 as the school has in previous years. According to longtime Dean of Admissions William Fitzsimmons, Harvard will gather this demographic data from those students who decide to enroll when they matriculate, which they have until May 1st to do (although, let’s be real, not many of them won’t be going to Harvard — with its 85% yield!).

However, we can report that 53.1% of this year’s Early Action admits are women, and 46.9% are men. 15.5% are first-generation college students — students who will be the first in their families to attend college. 22.3% of admitted students hail from New England, 20.8% from the Mid-Atlantic region, 17.2% from the West, 14.5% from the South, and 8.4% from the Midwest. 

Perhaps the most significant change in data lies with the admitted pool of international students, who comprise 17% of Harvard’s Early Action admits this year, a 3.1% increase from the 14.1% admitted last year for the Class of 2027, and a 4.4% jump from the 12.6% admitted in 2021 for the Class of 2026.

Ivy Coach’s Assistance Moving Forward for Deferred or Denied Harvard Applicants

Congratulations to Ivy Coach’s students who earned admission to the Harvard Class of 2028! If you’re a student who applied Early Action to Harvard and were deferred or denied admission, the fight is not over! 

Reach out to us today to set up a complimentary consultation so you can learn about what your next steps should be. For deferred candidates, we offer a PostMortem application review followed by assistance crafting a powerful Letter of Continued Interest. For denied candidates, we provide a PostMortem application review. And while we do offer assistance with Regular Decision applications, the cart must come before the horse. We first need to dissect the Early application on Ivy Coach’s operating table.