10 Colleges With the Highest Acceptance Rates

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At some colleges, the chances of being admitted are slim. But there are also schools at the opposite end of the spectrum, where applicants don't need to worry too much about the odds.

Among the 1,255 ranked schools that submitted these data to U.S. News in an annual survey, nine reported acceptance rates of 100 percent in fall 2015. Also on the list is Cameron University in Oklahoma, which admitted 99.7 percent.

Most of the 10 schools on the list are Regional Colleges -- which focus on undergraduate education but award fewer than half of their degrees in the liberal arts -- or Regional Universities, which offer a range of undergraduate and some master's degrees, but few doctoral programs.

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The University of Pikeville in Kentucky is the lone National Liberal Arts College on the list. These schools emphasize undergraduate education and award at least half their degrees in liberal arts disciplines. The University of Texas--El Paso is the list's only National University, meaning it has a range of undergraduate, master's and doctoral programs.

A majority of schools on the list are designated as Rank Not Published, or RNP, meaning that they rank in the bottom one-fourth of their ranking category. In those cases, U.S. News calculates a rank for the school but has decided not to publish it.

An additional 101 ranked schools nearly admitted 100 percent of applicants, reporting acceptance rates of higher than 90 percent to U.S. News for fall 2015, including the University of Toledo in Ohio and Montana State University--Billings.

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Meanwhile, schools with the lowest acceptance rates for fall 2015 include Alice Lloyd College, a National Liberal Arts College in Kentucky, at 4.7 percent; Stanford University in California, at 5 percent; and the Ivy League Harvard University, at 5.6 percent.

Below are the 10 colleges that had the highest acceptance rates in fall 2015. Unranked schools, which did not meet certain criteria required by U.S. News to be numerically ranked, were not considered for this report.

School (state)

Fall 2015 acceptance rate

U.S. News rank and category

Bismarck State College (ND)

100

56 (tie), Regional Colleges (Midwest)

University of Texas--El Paso

100

RNP, National Universities

CUNY--College of Staten Island

100

RNP, Regional Universities (North)

Indian River State College (FL)

100

RNP, Regional Colleges (South)

LeMoyne-Owen College (TN)

100

RNP, Regional Colleges (South)

New Mexico Highlands University

100

RNP, Regional Universities (West)

University of Pikeville (KY)

100

RNP, National Liberal Arts Colleges

Wayne State College (NE)

100

94 (tie), Regional Universities (Midwest)

Weber State University (UT)

100

76 (tie), Regional Universities (West)

Cameron University (OK)

99.7

RNP, Regional Universities (West)

Don't see your school in the top 10? Access the U.S. News College Compass to find admissions data, complete rankings and much more. School officials can access historical data and rankings, including of peer institutions, via U.S. News Academic Insights.

U.S. News surveyed more than 1,800 colleges and universities for our 2016 survey of undergraduate programs. Schools self-reported myriad data regarding their academic programs and the makeup of their student body, among other areas, making U.S. News' data the most accurate and detailed collection of college facts and figures of its kind. While U.S. News uses much of this survey data to rank schools for our annual Best Colleges rankings, the data can also be useful when examined on a smaller scale. U.S. News will now produce lists of data, separate from the overall rankings, meant to provide students and parents a means to find which schools excel, or have room to grow, in specific areas that are important to them. While the data come from the schools themselves, these lists are not related to, and have no influence over, U.S. News' rankings of Best Colleges, Best Graduate Schools or Best Online Programs. The admissions data above are correct as of Nov. 29, 2016.

Jordan Friedman is an online education editor at U.S. News. You can follow him on Twitter or email him at jfriedman@usnews.com.