Haverford Admits Domestic Applicants at Over 22% — International Applicants at Under 4%

Haverford College's published acceptance rate for the Fall 2025 entering class was 13.31%, from 896 admits out of 6,730 first-year applicants. One note before the breakdown: these figures are Haverford's alone. Haverford shares a Bi-College and Tri-College consortium with Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore for cross-registration and shared academic life, but each college files its own separate Common Data Set, and nothing in this article draws on Bryn Mawr's or Swarthmore's numbers. Break Haverford's own applicant pool out by residency and domestic applicants (in-state and out-of-state combined) were admitted at 22.21%, while international applicants were admitted at 3.81% — a gap of nearly six-to-one that held in almost the same shape a year earlier.

The Decomposition

All figures are from Haverford College's own Common Data Set, Section C1 residency supplement, for the Fall 2025 entering cohort, filed by the Haverford College Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness.

Show the math: In-state and out-of-state applicants combine to 626 + 2,850 = 3,476 domestic applicants, of whom 108 + 664 = 772 were admitted, and 772 / 3,476 = 22.21%. International applicants are a separate pool: 124 of 3,254 were admitted, and 124 / 3,254 = 3.81%. Divide the two rates and 22.21 / 3.81 = 5.83 — domestic applicants were admitted at roughly 5.8 times the international rate.

Where the Real Gap Is

Within U.S. residency, the gap at Haverford is real but modest — in-state applicants were admitted at 17.25% and out-of-state applicants at 23.30%, a six-point spread. International status is where the divide widens sharply. Domestic applicants combined were admitted at 22.21%; international applicants were admitted at 3.81%, less than a sixth of that rate. The pattern held in Fall 2024: domestic applicants combined were admitted at 20.50% (783 of 3,820), international applicants at 3.55% (125 of 3,521) — a 5.77x gap.

Haverford's Common Data Set doesn't explain why the international admit rate sits so far below the domestic rate, and we're not going to speculate about admissions criteria the college hasn't published. What the data shows is the size of the gap, repeated across two entering classes. This is now a pattern across six liberal arts colleges we've examined — Bates, Carleton, Harvey Mudd, Vassar, Haverford, and Wellesley — with the domestic-to-international admit-rate gap ranging from 2.7x to 9.6x; see the Bates and Carleton breakdowns for two of the other five. If you're applying to Haverford from outside the United States, 13.31% is not a reasonable estimate of your odds — 3.81% is a far more accurate starting point for building your list.

What Haverford Doesn't Publish: A Round-by-Round Early Decision Rate

Unlike several peer schools in this series, Haverford's Early Decision section passes the cross-year cohort check both filings reviewed report figures under their own filing year, with no stale copy-forward label — so a combined ED admit rate can be stated with confidence: 32.62% for Fall 2025 (229 of 702) and 29.40% for Fall 2024 (219 of 745). But that's as far as it goes. Haverford's Common Data Set reports only one combined Early Decision figure with no split between ED I and ED II, even though the CDS lists two separate closing and notification date pairs suggesting two rounds exist. Because there's no round-level breakdown to work with, we're not building a round-based admissions story here — residency remains the axis with real explanatory power for Haverford, and that's the breakdown this article uses.

The Pattern Held in Fall 2024

Domestic rates rose across both residency groups between the years, and the international rate ticked up slightly too — but the domestic-to-international ratio held nearly flat, between 5.77x and 5.83x. What didn't move: international applicants stayed under 4% in both years, while combined domestic figures cleared 20% in both years. The divide that matters at Haverford is international status.

What This Means for Your Application

A domestic admit rate near 22%, with a real but modest gap between in-state (17.25%) and out-of-state (23.30%) applicants, means Haverford rewards applying from outside its home state somewhat — but the bigger lever by far is international status. For international applicants, the calculus is starker: a 3.81% admit rate belongs in the same planning bucket as the most selective schools in the country, and it should shape how many similarly selective reaches you're willing to carry elsewhere on your list.

Haverford's Early Decision figures are trustworthy this cycle, but without a round-level split they can't tell you whether ED I or ED II carries a bigger edge — only that ED overall runs meaningfully higher than the regular pool. Our application deadline tracker can help you keep Haverford's ED and regular deadlines lined up against the rest of your list. If you're weighing how a 4%-to-22% spread like this should shape your overall list, our free college list builder is built for exactly that kind of balancing. And if you want to talk through where a school like Haverford fits in your strategy, a free strategy call is a low-pressure way to work through it.