Georgetown University accepted 10% of early action applicants in its first admissions cycle following the Supreme Court’s decision in June to end race-based affirmative action in higher education.

The university admitted 881 of 8,584 applicants, according to a university spokesperson. The number of applications increased by 4.7% from the early action Class of 2027, while the acceptance rate dropped by 1.5%. Applicants received a notification of their application result via an online portal Dec. 15. 

The McDonough School of Business (MSB) saw the lowest acceptance rate, admitting 146 of 1,559 applicants for an acceptance rate of 9.4%. Georgetown College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) admitted 469 of 4,754 applicants, an acceptance rate of 9.9%. The School of Health (SOH) admitted 55 of 491 applicants, an acceptance rate of 11.2%. The Walsh School of Foreign Service admitted 185 of 1,578 applicants, an acceptance rate of 11.7%. The School of Nursing (SON) admitted 26 of 202 applicants, an acceptance rate of 12.9%.

Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Charles Deacon (CAS ’64, GRD ’69) said that unlike colleges that favor early decision, Georgetown tried to only admit about 10% of applicants despite having many more strong applicants.

“We have always had a policy that says we will not favor early action, because we think the pool is slightly balanced toward the more successful, more affluent students who are ready earlier,” Deacon told The Hoya.

The Class of 2028 is the first class accepted without race or ethnicity considered as a factor. Admissions officers could not view early applicants’ races or ethnicities, and demographics of the Class of 2028 will not be available until students officially enroll, according to Deacon.

Paolo Reyes, a Filipino-American accepted early action into the SFS, said he believes the Supreme Court decision affected his application.

“For me being an Asian-American, I would say that was more of a positive factor because I did look into Georgetown’s admission statistics, and it does seem that before the Supreme Court decision, Asian-Americans seemed to have been limited to about a quarter of the applicant pool, or the admitted pool,” Reyes told The Hoya.

Deacon said the university is concerned about the diversity of future classes but that application items like essays, extracurricular activities and alumni interviews can help to discern a student’s background.

“We’re in kind of this interim period of going through it, seeing how the results end up, maintaining our commitment to diversity, asking both our staff and their reviewing files and the admissions committees — on which students sit, by the way — when they review files to pay attention to this kind of information,” Deacon said.

Deacon said the university is working to build up its financial aid program and increase the Pell Grant population at Georgetown, which would help support the diversity that had been achievable with affirmative action.

“A significant part of our current student population of color, it’s not low income. It’s middle income, or even higher income, so we can address it through financial aid, both at lower income and middle income,” Deacon said. “And that will have a pretty disproportionate effect on underrepresented minority populations.”

Following the Supreme Court’s June decision on affirmative action, students and faculty at Georgetown began petitioning the university to end legacy admissions in order to increase the diversity of students. As of Jan. 18, over 1,000 community members have signed the petition.

Georgetown does not consider legacy status for early action applicants, according to Deacon.

“We’ve always said that if you’re going to get any extra attention, such as a recruited athlete or a legacy, that that would all always happen at the regular decision so that early becomes truly an honors-on-entrance type of a pool, the top of our class, basically,” Deacon said.

Deacon said in the past two years the university has turned to increasing the geographic diversity of its accepted students, looking at whether students are from rural, small town, suburban or urban areas. The university aims to give attention to underrepresented students from rural areas.

Students were admitted from 49 out of 50 states, Deacon added.

The mid-50% of SAT math scores of admitted students ranged from 730 to 790, while the mid-50% of SAT verbal scores ranged from 730-780. The mid-50% of ACT scores fell between 32 and 35. Admitted students ranked in the top 4% of their high school class, according to a university spokesperson.

Reyes said he applied to Georgetown because of its Jesuit values and appealing promotional approach.

“I felt Georgetown did give the most charisma in the tours and interacting with the school itself,” Reyes said. “From other schools I’ve looked at, I did get a lot more of a dry or corporate response from them, especially in the tours. But from what I’ve seen during my tour back in August, it did seem a bit more human.”