Brown University Admissions 2026–27: Acceptance Rate, SAT/ACT Scores, Early Decision, Essays, Financial Aid, and How to Get In

October 8, 2026

With application deadlines getting closer, now is a good time to take a deeper look at the schools on your list. Today we are heading to Providence, Rhode Island, for a closer look at Brown University, an Ivy League institution founded in 1764 and the seventh-oldest college in the United States. From its Open Curriculum and undergraduate research opportunities to its distinctive campus culture, here is what you should know about Brown before you apply.

Brown is best known for its Open Curriculum, which gives students unusual freedom to shape their education. There is no traditional core curriculum and no set of general education distribution requirements. This works especially well for students who are interested in connecting ideas across different fields. A useful question is: What would you study because Brown gives you this freedom? You might connect biology with public policy, computer science with philosophy, engineering with visual art, or economics with environmental studies.

Students complete the requirements for their concentration (Brown’s term for a major), and have considerable freedom beyond it. Students spend their first two years exploring and must declare a concentration by the middle of their fourth semester, usually in spring of sophomore year.

If a student's interests do not fit one of the 80 offered concentrations, they can also create their own. This is one of Brown’s more distinctive academic options. Many colleges support interdisciplinary study, but relatively few let undergraduates formally design their own field of study.

Brown’s Shopping Period reflects the same culture of exploration. At the beginning of each semester, students have two weeks to explore courses and adjust their schedules before settling into their final selections.

Brown sits on College Hill, overlooking downtown Providence. Providence is Rhode Island’s capital and has about 195,000 residents, giving Brown an urban setting with a distinct campus community.

The main campus feels traditionally collegiate, with brick buildings, historic architecture, green quads, libraries, and residence halls. Walk down College Hill and you quickly reach restaurants, cafés, hospitals, arts venues, internships, and other parts of city life. The result is an attractive combination: a defined university campus with a real city immediately below it.

Brown offers the resources of a major research university on a relatively human scale. The student-faculty ratio is 6:1, and Brown reports that 68% of classes have fewer than 20 students.

Undergraduates can work with faculty, conduct independent research, pursue summer projects, present their work at conferences, and complete senior theses. For students who enjoy following questions beyond the classroom, Brown provides many ways to turn an academic interest into deeper study or research.

PLME: Program in Liberal Medical Education
Brown’s eight-year Program in Liberal Medical Education connects undergraduate study at Brown with the Warren Alpert Medical School. Students are admitted as first-year undergraduates and complete both a bachelor’s degree and an MD. PLME is exceptionally selective. Brown reports 4,687 applicants and 50 enrolled students in its latest admissions statistics.

Brown | RISD Dual Degree
The Brown | RISD Dual Degree is a five-year program in which students earn degrees from both Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design. Brown reports 856 applicants and 20 enrolled students in its latest figures.

Independent Concentrations
Brown allows students to design their own Independent Concentration when their interests cannot be addressed adequately through an existing program. That level of formal academic flexibility is relatively uncommon and fits closely with Brown’s student-directed approach to learning.

Selectivity
Brown is one of the most selective universities in the country. For the Class of 2030, Brown reports 47,944 applications, 2,687 admitted students, and a 5.6% overall acceptance rate.

Strong grades, rigorous coursework, and testing establish academic readiness. Brown receives many applications from students who already meet that academic standard, so the rest of the application needs to show who you are as a thinker, student, and community member.

Application requirements
Brown uses the Common Application, and eligible students may also apply through QuestBridge. Applicants submit a school report, counselor recommendation, two teacher recommendations, Brown’s supplemental essays, and either the SAT or ACT.

For the Class of 2030, the middle 50% of admitted students who submitted scores had an SAT of 1470 – 1550 or an ACT of 34 – 36.

Students may also submit an optional 90-second video introduction and, if relevant, an optional research paper or abstract. International applicants may need to submit an English proficiency test. Brown accepts the TOEFL, IELTS, Duolingo English Test, Pearson Test of English, and Cambridge English.

What does Brown look for?
Brown reviews applications holistically. Strong grades in the most rigorous courses available are the academic foundation, but Brown also looks for intellectual curiosity, creativity, initiative, collaboration, and meaningful engagement outside the classroom.

Your application should show how you pursue ideas and what you would do with Brown’s academic freedom. Research specific concentrations, courses, faculty research, interdisciplinary programs, centers, and student organizations that connect to interests you have already developed. Your essays should reveal an authentic voice, a clear academic direction, and how you would contribute to the Brown community.

Brown’s current first-year application includes four short responses and an optional video. Think of the essays together. Each response should add something different. By the end of the supplement, Brown should know more about your academic interests, background, personality, values, and way of thinking. Applicants to PLME and the Brown | RISD Dual Degree complete additional program-specific writing.

Open Curriculum, 150–250 words
This prompt asks you to consider your academic interests and how you might pursue them through Brown’s Open Curriculum. Show what you want to explore and how you think. Make the academic connections specific to you.

Growing up and community, 150–250 words
Brown asks how an aspect of your upbringing has inspired or challenged you and what you might contribute to the Brown community as a result. Add a perspective, experience, or part of your background that gives the reader new information about you.

Teach a class, 100–150 words
If you could teach a class about anything, what would you teach? This is a good place for personality. Your answer can be academic, practical, quirky, or unexpectedly specific.

Joy, 100–150 words
Brown asks you to share something that brings you joy. Choose something genuine. A small and specific topic can reveal more about you than another accomplishment.

Video introduction
Brown encourages applicants to submit an optional video introduction of no more than 90 seconds. I recommend submitting it. Brown explicitly says that production quality is not evaluated and that simple and unrehearsed is fine. Use the time to add something that Brown would not already know from your essays and activities.

Brown’s traditions range from formal ceremonies to the distinctly quirky. The Van Wickle Gates are Brown’s best-known tradition. The center gates remain closed for most of the year. They open inward when new students process through them at Opening Convocation and outward when seniors leave at Commencement. Campus lore warns students against walking through the center gates in between those two occasions (believed to bring bad luck to those who ignore the warning!).

Campus Dance takes place during Commencement and Reunion Weekend. The Main Green becomes a large outdoor celebration with music, dancing, lights, students, alumni, and families. Spring Weekend is one of the major student events of the spring semester, with concerts and performances on campus. Josiah S. Carberry Day celebrates a fictional Brown professor of “psychoceramics,” the supposed study of cracked pots. The character dates to 1929 and has become a long-running piece of Brown humor.

The Naked Donut Run is a finals-period tradition in which naked students run through campus libraries handing out donuts to students studying. The Halloween Midnight Organ Recital brings students to Sayles Hall late on Halloween for music on Brown’s historic organ, often with students arriving in costume and settling in with blankets or pillows. Together, these traditions give Brown’s campus culture a combination of history, community, and eccentricity.

Brown tends to suit students who enjoy building connections across subjects and following questions further than a syllabus requires. The Open Curriculum gives you room to do that, and the strongest fit usually comes from students who already show this kind of curiosity in high school.

Look at your own record. Have you explored an idea from more than one angle? Pursued a question after the class moved on? Combined interests that do not obviously belong together? Taken initiative in a research project, club, community activity, or independent project? Those experiences give you concrete evidence of Brown fit and make your interest in academic freedom more convincing.

Brown also values students who are willing to ask difficult questions, try new approaches, contribute to their communities, and learn from other people. When you research Brown, go beyond the Open Curriculum itself. Look at the different pathways within concentrations, the research you could join, and the communities where you could contribute. The strongest reason to apply is when you can see a clear connection between how you already learn and what Brown would let you do next.