The hardest college to get into in every state
On Thursday, America's insanely competitive Ivy League schools will announce their admissions decisions.
America's Ivy League schools — Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale — have some of the most competitive admissions standards in America. In fact, Harvard is America's hardest college to get into, according to rankings from the academic review site Niche.com.
The rankings are based on acceptance rates and SAT and ACT scores reported to the US Department of Education. College acceptance rates received a weighted average of 60% in the ranking computation, and SAT/ACT scores received a weighted average of 40%.
Business Insider used Niche's state filter to find out which college is the hardest to get into in each of America's 50 states and the District of Columbia. Niche reports that a few states (Alaska, Delaware, Nevada, and Wyoming) are missing from the ranking because they don't have data for enough colleges.
Scroll through to find out the most selective college in each state — and to learn about non-Ivy League schools that are also relatively competitive.
Note: Niche used the most recent data available to calculate its rankings, usually from 2012-2013 or 2013-2014.
Alabama: Spring Hill College
Acceptance rate: 46.3%
Arizona: Arizona Christian University
Facebook/Arizona Christian University
Acceptance rate: 60.8%
Arkansas: University of Arkansas
UArk.edu
Acceptance rate: 58.6%
California: California Institute of Technology
Acceptance rate: 10.6%
Colorado: United States Air Force Academy
Acceptance rate: 15.4%
Connecticut: Yale University
Francisco Anzola/Flickr
Acceptance rate: 7.1%
District of Columbia (D.C.): Georgetown University
Reuters
Acceptance rate: 17%
Florida: University of Miami
Acceptance rate: 40.4%
Georgia: Emory University
Via Wikimedia Commons
Acceptance rate: 26.3%
Hawaii: Brigham Young University at Hawaii
Facebook/BYU Hawaii
Acceptance rate: 36%
Idaho: Northwest Nazarene University
Facebook/Northwest Nazarene University
Acceptance rate: 61.7%
Illinois: University of Chicago
Flickr/Quinn Dombrowski
Acceptance rate: 8.8%
Indiana: University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame Admissions/Facebook
Acceptance rate: 22.3%
Iowa: Grinnell College
Facebook/grinnellcollegealumni
Acceptance rate: 35.1%
Kansas: Newman University
Facebook/Newman University
Acceptance rate: 44.7%
Kentucky: Berea College
Facebook/Berea College
Acceptance rate: 34%
Louisiana: Tulane University
Flickr / Tulane Public Relations
Acceptance rate: 26.4%
Maine: Bowdoin College
Via Wikimedia Commons
Acceptance rate: 15%
Maryland: Johns Hopkins University
Via Wikimedia Commons
Acceptance rate: 18.1%
Massachusetts: Harvard University
AP Photo/Lisa Poole
Acceptance rate: 5.8%
Michigan: University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
Wikimedia Commons
Acceptance rate: 33.3%
Minnesota: Carleton College
Via Wikimedia Commons
Acceptance rate: 21%
Mississippi: Millsaps College
Wikimedia Commons
Acceptance rate: 47.5%
Missouri: Washington University in St. Louis
Facebook/Washington University in St. Louis
Acceptance rate: 15.6%
Montana: Carroll College
Facebook/Carroll College
Acceptance rate:53.0%
Nebraska: Nebraska Methodist College of Nursing & Allied Health
Google street view
Acceptance rate: 33.3%
New Hampshire: Dartmouth College
Via Flickr
Acceptance rate: 9.8%
New Jersey: Princeton University
REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Acceptance rate: 7.4%
New Mexico: New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology
wikipedia public domain
Acceptance rate: 41.4%
New York: Columbia University
Wikimedia Commons / Momos
Acceptance rate: 7.4%
North Carolina: Duke University
Flickr / Matt Phillips
Acceptance rate: 13.4%
North Dakota: Minot State University
Wikimedia Commons
Acceptance rate: 56.6%
Ohio: Oberlin College
Flickr/chicabrandita
Acceptance rate: 30.4%
Oklahoma: University of Tulsa
Wikimedia Commons
Acceptance rate: 40.6%
Oregon: Reed College
Via Flickr
Acceptance rate: 48.5%
Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania
Via Wikimedia Commons
Acceptance rate: 12.2%
Rhode Island: Brown University
Via Wikimedia Commons
Acceptance rate: 9.2%
South Carolina: Clemson University
Via Wikimedia Commons
Acceptance rate: 57.9%
South Dakota: Augustana College
Via Wikimedia Commons
Acceptance rate: 68.1%
Tennessee: Vanderbilt University
Via Wikimedia Commons
Acceptance rate: 12.7%
Texas: Rice University
Shu-Wei Hsu/Flickr
Acceptance rate: 16.7%
Utah: Brigham Young University
Facebook/BYU
Acceptance rate: 49.4%
Vermont: Middlebury College
Flickr/cogdogblog
Acceptance rate: 17.2%
Virginia: Washington & Lee University
Wikimedia Commons
Acceptance rate: 18.4%
Washington: Whitman College
Via Wikimedia Commons
Acceptance rate: 57.0%
West Virginia: Ohio Valley University
Facebook/Ohio Valley University
Acceptance rate: 36.4%
Wisconsin: Marquette University
Wikimedia Commons
Acceptance rate: 57.5%
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