Emory University released its Early Decision I (ED1) results on Dec. 15.
Of 2,127 ED1 applicants to Emory College, 672 students were accepted, a 32% acceptance rate according to Dean of Admission John Latting.
There were 1,262 applicants to Oxford College, which includes students who applied to both the main campus and Oxford. Of those, 329 were accepted, a 26% acceptance rate. Emory College also admitted 193 of the 329 students admitted to Oxford College.
Applicants who apply ED1 are the second to be accepted into the Emory College of Arts and Sciences and Oxford College after Questbridge applicants.
Last year, Emory College admitted 614 students under ED1. Stemming from an unprecedented application process due to COVID-19 in 2020, the number of applications grew by 13% following a record-number of applications for ED1 last year.
Under the QuestBridge program, low-income and first-generation college students are given an opportunity to match with a partner university. This year, 61 QuestBridge Scholars were matched with Emory, the largest number in the school’s 14 years history with the program.
“If you combine Questbridge and the ED1 class this is the best year we’ve ever seen in terms of diversity and academic preparation as well,” Latting said. “It’s the quality and diversity really growing together. They really go hand in hand. We’re really pleased by that.”
Out of the 672 accepted ED1 applicants, 134 of them—about 20%—are international students. Three of the 61 QuestBridge applicants are international students.
This was the second year of Emory’s test-optional policy. Latting said that the admissions team continues to adapt to the changing application process and “a bigger, stronger, more diverse applicant pool.”
“The testing situation continues to be new to us,” Latting said. “This is year two of a test-optional environment. We continue to refine our work to be fair to students who elect not to submit a score but on the other hand respond to students who do submit a good score.”
Latting said that one of the challenges his office faces in the admissions process is determining how many spaces to reserve for each applicant pool.
“We’re looking at the trends, and we’re trying to understand what’s the appropriate commitment of spaces to the class, you have to think a lot about that,” Latting said. “We make a judgment call given what we have in the early decision applicant pool, looking at the trends on what’s coming.”
One trend is that more students have started to apply ED1 or ED2 rather than Regular Decision over the past few years, Latting said. Because of this, Latting said that the admissions office has “been comfortable steadily increasing the share of the class that is admitted early decision.”
There are still two more rounds of acceptances in the application process for Emory’s Class of 2026, including Early Decision II (ED2) and Regular Decision, with both application deadlines being on Jan. 1. ED2 applicants will receive their results by Feb. 15, and Regular Decision applicants will receive their results by April 1.
