Early Decision
Northwestern University Early Decision Acceptance Rate 2024-2025
IL
What is Northwestern University's Early Decision acceptance rate?
Northwestern University admitted 23.0% of its 5154 Early Decision applicants and 5.9% of everyone else in the same admissions cycle — 3.9x (Common Data Set 2024-2025).
What Northwestern University reported · Common Data Set 2024-2025
Early Decision · 1186 admitted of 5154 applied
23.0%
Everyone else in the same pool
5.9%
Early Decision rate ÷ rest-of-pool rate
3.9x
This compares two rates the school published for two groups of applicants. The Early Decision pool is not a random slice of the applicants — recruited athletes, legacy applicants and QuestBridge matches are counted inside it — so this is a difference between the school’s two pools, not a multiplier on your own chances.
Admitted SAT · middle 50% · College Scorecard 2024
1510–1570
Half of admitted students scored inside this range. It is the admitted band, not a minimum and not a cutoff, and it covers the whole entering class rather than the Early Decision round alone.
What families actually pay (AY 2023–24)
Early Decision is binding, so accepting one ends the option of comparing two aid offers. These are the published averages before that choice is made.
Average paid by students receiving federal aid, by family income (College Scorecard).
International students are not eligible for U.S. federal aid, so they are not in this cohort and typically pay closer to the sticker price.
Across the 8 recorded cycles from 2017 to 2024, Northwestern University's overall acceptance rate fell from 9.2% to 7.7%. That is the whole entering class — Early Decision, Early Action and Regular Decision together — not the Early Decision round on its own.
See the year-by-year series →Should you use your one Early Decision application here? — see the call on your list, $49
This page is one school. The call needs the rest of your list beside it — the same published figures, read against each other.
Read my list →Common Data Set — the school's own annual filing, published by the school itself for the cycle named beside each figure. Northwestern University’s filing