It’s that time of year again — several colleges released their admissions decisions this week, sending hundreds of thousands of anxious high school students into either incredible elation or crushing disappointment.

Seven out of the eight Ivy League schools posted all-time low acceptance rates for the class of 2017 yesterday, making for the most competitive admissions cycle in history. Yale accepted a record-low of 6.72 percent of its 29,610 applicant pool, and Harvard — the only Ivy more selective than Yale this year — saw its acceptance rate plummet down to a mere 5.79 percent.

Columbia and Princeton reported rates of 6.89 percent and 7.29 percent, respectively, while Cornell, Brown and the University of Pennsylvania posted rates of 15.15 percent, 9.16 percent and 12.1 percent.

The only Ivy League institution that reported an increase in its acceptance rate this year was Dartmouth, rising from 9.43 percent in 2012 to 10 percent yesterday.

Outside of the Ivy cluster, MIT also reported an all-time low acceptance rate, admitting just 8.3 percent of its applicant pool. Over on the opposite coast, Stanford announced today that it accepted only 5.69 percent of its applicants — 2,210 students from a pool of 38,828 applications.

The record-low admission rates this year continue the trend of increasing selectivity at top colleges nationwide. Experts interviewed were divided on the question of whether or not this trend will continue into future years.

AMY WANG