Columbia acceptance rate and admissions statistics
Columbia admitted 2,946 of 59,611 first-year applicants in its 2025-26 Common Data Set, an official acceptance rate of 4.9%. Every number below comes from the college’s own Common Data Set, each year linked to its document; a figure the college leaves blank says “Not published”, and the notes at the foot of the page say where a total is the sum of rows the college printed.
What did admitted applicants have? How to get into Columbia counts the grades, scores and activities they posted.
Columbia acceptance rate by year
| CDS year | Applied | Admitted | Acceptance rate | Enrolled | Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | 59,611 | 2,946 | 4.9% | 1,797 | 61.0% |
| 2024-25 | 60,247 | 2,325 | 3.9% | 1,483 | 63.8% |
| 2023-24 | 57,126 | 2,284 | 4.0% | 1,454 | 63.7% |
Acceptance rate is admitted divided by applied; yield is enrolled divided by admitted. Both are computed by Aristo Scholars from the two counts printed beside them.
Early decision at Columbia
Columbia waitlist
Waitlist counts: Not published. Columbia’s Common Data Set prints no waitlist numbers (section C2) for any year shown.
Columbia SAT and ACT scores
What Columbia says matters in admission
In section C7 each college rates its own admission factors as Very Important, Important, Considered or Not Considered. These are the factors Columbia rated in the top two tiers.
- 2025-26
- Very important: Rigor of secondary school record, Class rank, Academic GPA, Application essay, Recommendations, Extracurricular activities, Character/personal qualities
- Important: Talent/ability
- 2024-25
- Very important: Rigor of secondary school record, Class rank, Academic GPA, Application essay, Recommendations, Extracurricular activities, Character/personal qualities
- Important: Talent/ability
- 2023-24
- Very important: Rigor of secondary school record, Class rank, Academic GPA, Application essay, Recommendations, Extracurricular activities, Character/personal qualities
- Important: Talent/ability
Columbia testing policy for students applying in 2026-27
Test optional for the 2026-27 cycle. Columbia College and Columbia Engineering stay test-optional for 2026-27 and will reinstate a testing requirement from August 2027, for the 2027-28 cycle.
From Columbia’s admissions site, read 2026-11-05. Policies change; the college’s page is the authority.
How these numbers were read
Figures cover Columbia College and Columbia Engineering; the School of General Studies publishes a separate Common Data Set. C2 reports a waitlist but prints no waitlist counts in any year shown.
Columbia acceptance rate questions
- What is the Columbia acceptance rate?
- Columbia's Common Data Set for 2025-26 reports 59,611 first-year applicants and 2,946 admitted, an acceptance rate of 4.9%. It was 3.9% in 2024-25 and 4.0% in 2023-24.
- What is the Columbia early decision acceptance rate?
- In 2025-26, 819 of 5,868 early decision applicants were admitted (14.0%), against 4.9% of all applicants. Early decision applicants are a different pool who commit to enroll, so the two rates are not a like-for-like comparison.
- What SAT scores do Columbia students have?
- In 2025-26, the middle half of enrolled first-year students who submitted the SAT scored 1510 to 1560, and ACT submitters scored 34 to 35. 50.0% of enrolled students submitted an SAT score.
- Does Columbia require the SAT or ACT for students applying in 2026-27?
- Test optional for the 2026-27 cycle. Columbia College and Columbia Engineering stay test-optional for 2026-27 and will reinstate a testing requirement from August 2027, for the 2027-28 cycle.
Applying to Columbia?
An acceptance rate describes the whole pool, not one student. A Specialist can read your student’s file against what Columbia says it weighs.
Source: Columbia Common Data Set, sections C1, C2, C7, C9 and C21, each year linked above, read 2026-11-05. Aristo Scholars is not affiliated with Columbia. All official acceptance rates