Georgetown University, one of the most prestigious institutions of higher education in the country, has announced a change in its admissions policy effective August 2026. For the first time, it will allow students to apply via the Common Application.
Georgetown was founded in 1789, soon after the birth of the country and was the first Roman Catholic college in the U.S. During the Civil War, its student body dropped to 17 students. To commemorate the war’s end, Georgetown students selected blue and gray as the official school colors.
Today, it hosts 7,220 full-time undergraduate students and has an acceptance rate of 13%. Its acceptance rate is likely to plummet once Georgetown joins the ranks of the 1,097 colleges that accept the Common App which simplifies the application process for college-bound high school students. By filling out one application, millions of students each year can apply to up to 20 colleges.
In announcing its change of policy, effective for the class entering in the fall 2027, Georgetown said that accepting the Common App would make its admission process more accessible to students from a wide variety of backgrounds and reach a larger percentage of low-income students.
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In addition, Georgetown announced that it will continue to require SAT or ACT scores from all applicants. This is likewise the case at many competitive universities, including Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Georgia Tech, Harvard, Purdue, University of Florida, University of Georgia, University of Miami, University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas – Austin, and Yale.
Georgetown also announced that it would not be making any changes to its admission policy for legacy applicants at this time. The school says it gives “extra care and attention when reviewing the applications of students who are relatives of faculty, staff or alumni.”
Other institutions that reportedly consider legacy status in their admissions decision include Babson, Barnard, Bates, Bentley, Boston College, Brown, Bucknell, Case Western, Colgate, College of the Holy Cross, College of William & Mary, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Drexel, Duke, Emory, Fairfield, George Washington, Harvard, Haverford, Lafayette, Lehigh, Loyola (Maryland), NJIT, Northeastern, Northwestern, Penn State, Princeton, Stanford, TCNJ, Tufts, University of Miami, UNC – Chapel Hill, University of Notre Dame, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California, University of Virginia, Vanderbilt, Vassar and Villanova.
Notable Georgetown alums include former President Bill Clinton, actor Bradley Cooper, and journalist Savannah Guthrie.
Susan Alaimo is the founder & director of Collegebound Review, offering PSAT/SAT® preparation & private college advising by Ivy League educated instructors. Visit CollegeboundReview.com or call 908-369-5362.
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Getting into Georgetown University may have gotten more difficult