Last month, on Dec. 15, Hamilton College notified 191 students that they had been accepted into the Class of 2022. The majority of these students applied through Hamilton’s Early Decision Plan I program, for which applications were due Nov. 15. Of the 191 accepted students, 161 applied through this Early Decision plan, which is a binding commitment for prospective students. The remaining 25 accepted students were from the non-profit scholarship programs QuestBridge and the Posse Foundation. This is the first time Hamilton has accepted QuestBridge scholars; the College partnered with the organization last summer. These 191 students were accepted from a total pool of 647 applicants for an acceptance rate of around 29.5 percent.
Of the accepted students, gender was split almost equally, with 95 applicants identifying as female and 96 identifying as male. 27 percent of them are U.S. students of color, while seven percent are non-U.S. citizens. The Admission Office reports that these incoming students will be arriving from all around the world; 19 percent are from the state of New York, 29 percent hail from outside New England and the Mid-Atlantic, and 28 states and 11 countries are represented overall. The countries include Bermuda, China, Hungary, India, Japan, Morocco, Spain, Thailand, and Vietnam.
The Admission Office cautions that this data represents incomplete information, as the ED Round 2 and Regular Decision selection processes are still underway. Now that the Jan. 1 application deadline has passed, the office has compiled a report on the overall applicant pool, though the numbers do not reflect admits.
Hamilton’s current application total for the Class of 2022 is 6,238, marking a 9.8 percent increase over last year’s record-high 5,678. This is the first time the 6,000 mark has been surpassed since the College was chartered in 1812.
The total applicant pool consists of 19 percent international citizens, 33 percent U.S. citizens of color, and 26 percent from students who would be the first in their family to attend college. In order, the most represented states are NY, MA, CA, NJ, CT, FL, PA, TX, IL, MD; the most represented countries outside of the U.S. are China, Pakistan, India, Kenya, Nepal, Canada, and Vietnam.
Monica Inzer, Vice President for Enrollment Management, expressed excitement about the record number of applications Hamilton received and college applicants’ growing interest in the College. However, she also noted that the admissions team now faces the difficult task of notifying regular decision applicants by the late March deadline.
“It is both humbling and gratifying work,” Inzer said. “As usual… figuring out who not to take will be the hardest part of our job.”
