Harvard acceptance plunges to record low

Washington: Harvard University has accepted a record-low 5.3 per cent of this year's 37,307 applicants.

Ivy League institution, which had a 5.9 percent acceptance rate in 2014, made the chance of receiving an acceptance letter the slimmest ever this year, and other Ivy League colleges also posted low acceptance rates, with Columbia University posting a record low 6.1 percent admissions rate, CBS News reported.

The slimmer chance of acceptance comes as top colleges are increasingly marketing themselves to high-achieving seniors, causing some college counselors to criticize the efforts as misleading since it raises hopes that are likely to be dashed given the difficult entry statistics.

Admissions director Marlyn E. McGrath said in a statement that many applicants to Harvard had strong academic credentials, adding that more than 16,000 of the applicants scored above 700 on the SAT math test, for instance, while 3,000 were ranked first in their high school classes.

Cornell University had the highest acceptance rate of 14.9 percent among the Ivies, up from 14 percent in 2014, according to Business Insider. Stanford University, which isn't an Ivy League college, was the most selective of all, with a 5 percent acceptance rate, a record low for the institution.