Amid the chaos and uncertainty brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, Yale College admitted 2,304 students to the class of 2024 out of 35,220 applicants.
According to the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, the number of admitted students represents 6.54 percent of applicants from both early action and regular decision, up from the class of 2023’s 5.91 percent. This year’s group of admitted students represents all 50 states, as well as Washington D.C., Puerto Rico and 72 countries.
The class of 2024 will complete the expansion of Yale College that started three years ago with the opening of the University’s newest residential colleges — Pauli Murray and Benjamin Franklin. The new group of Yalies will bring undergraduate enrollment to around 6,520 students, which marks a 15 percent increase since 2017.
“Offering a Yale education to more talented and promising students has been a highlight of my work and will complete the University’s vision for a larger and stronger Yale College that has been more than a decade in the making,” said Dean of Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid Jeremiah Quinlan. “The world has never been more in need of intelligent, strong, committed, energetic and visionary young people, and I am delighted so many of those young people decided to apply to Yale College.”
According to Director of Outreach and Recruitment at Undergraduate Admissions Mark Dunn ’07, in December, Yale offered admissions to 796 applicants in the early action round. In total, 30,149 applicants were denied admission, 1,281 withdrew their applications, 1,290 applicants were offered a spot on the waitlist and 196 applications were incomplete. Further, the College admitted 87 applicants through the QuestBridge National College Match program, setting a new record for Yale and representing the largest number of matching students at any of the 40 QuestBridge partner schools.
As it stands, Yale’s undergraduate student body includes more than 1,000 students who receive Federal Pell Grants for low income students, according to the Director of the Office of Undergraduate Financial Aid Scott Wallace-Juedes. This is an increase of 50 percent over the past four years.
In past years admitted students were able to attend Bulldog Days — a three-day program that aims to showcase all that Yale has to offer — as well as Bulldog Saturday — a condensed version of Bulldog Days — but the two events were canceled this year due to COVID-19. Instead, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions replaced the on-campus programming with a month-long, virtual event called “30 Bulldog Days of April.” On the newly-created Admitted Students Network, admitted students were given the opportunity to connect virtually with one another, Yale faculty, and current students. The platform allowed prospective students to create profiles and connect via chat and video, attend master classes taught by Yale faculty, attend live-streamed video panels about different elements of campus life, and explore virtual content from student organizations, said Hannah Mendlowitz ’12, director of recruitment at the admissions office.
“While this is not the ideal situation, we’re very fortunate to work in a community of creative, innovative and welcoming people who are eager to help,” Mendlowitz said. “We can only imagine how tough it will be for some admitted students, who haven’t had the benefit of visiting campus, to make such an important decision over the next month — so we’ll do everything we can to help students feel comfortable committing to Yale.”
The office hosted virtual events each day, inviting all of the 2,304 recently admitted students to participate. According to Mendlowitz, the office usually plans for approximately 65 percent of admitted students to attend Bulldog Days. However, this virtual format allowed them to plan for 100 percent of admitted students to attend at least one event.
After the month-long virtual Bulldog Days event, admitted students had until May 1 to respond to their offers of admission.
Class of 2024, welcome home!
Julia Bialek | julia.bialek@yale.edu