The 9 Hardest Colleges and Universities to Get Into, Ranked

Five aspects are considered to be the most important by the admissions office: essays, recommendations, character/personal traits, and the rigour of the secondary curriculum.

Caltech

Many teenage geniuses and overachievers aspire to attend Harvard, which makes it the envy of other colleges.

 Harvard University

One of the world's best research universities and one of the top feeder schools for the tech industry is located in the centre of Silicon Valley.

Stanford University

Gaining admission to Yale is an unpredictable endeavour where a lot of salutatorians and valedictorians fail.

Yale University

MIT is looking for the brightest and most creative brains in engineering, physics, math, and allied subjects. These people will one day build the world that the rest of us will only live in.

MIT

Nashville, Tennessee's Vanderbilt University has positioned itself as one of the nation's ultra-elite universities in addition to being one of the South's most selective colleges.

 Vanderbilt University

This school consistently has infinitesimal chances of admission the acceptance percentage hasn't been in the double digits since 2011.

Columbia University

In summary, even for the most talented applicants, getting into Princeton is a terrifying process that almost always ends in failure.

Princeton University

Over the past ten years, the University of Chicago has experienced a revolutionary makeover.

University of Chicago