Almost everything written about US admissions is about the universities that reject nearly everyone. This is the other end, and for a student building a list that is not made entirely of two percent chances, it is the more useful half.
Every US university publishes a document called the Common Data Set. In it, many universities say how many people applied, how many were admitted and how many enrolled, with separate lines for students applying from inside the state, from elsewhere in the country, and from abroad. Hardly anyone turns that last line into a percentage, so we did.
Where these numbers come from
The rate is the number of international students a university admitted, divided by the number who applied. Universities count someone as international if their home address was outside the United States when they applied.
We did three things before we trusted any of it.
First, we checked each university's numbers against its own totals. If you add up the students a university says applied from inside the state, from elsewhere in the country and from abroad, the result should match the overall number of applicants it reports on the same page. At 23 universities it did not, so we left them out, including several that would otherwise have made this list. The worst case was UC Merced, which reported admitting 22,816 international students out of 3,465 who applied.
Second, we ignored universities with very few international applicants. A university that admits nine people out of nine has a 100% acceptance rate and tells you nothing, so a university needed at least 300 international applicants to be included.
Third, we opened the original documents for the universities at the top of the list and read the numbers ourselves. The University of Mississippi reports admitting 374 international students out of 375 who applied. Michigan Tech reports 845 out of 884. Arizona State reports 8,009 out of 8,906. All three matched what we had calculated, and two of them had published more recent numbers than the ones we started with, so we used the newer ones.
The ten highest acceptance rates for international applicants
| University | International acceptance rate | Admitted of applied | Cycle |
|---|---|---|---|
| University of Mississippi | 99.7% | 374 of 375 | Fall 2024 |
| Michigan Technological University | 95.6% | 845 of 884 | Fall 2025 |
| University of Kentucky | 93.4% | 969 of 1,038 | Fall 2024 |
| University of Utah | 92.7% | 711 of 767 | Fall 2024 |
| University of the Pacific | 90.6% | 300 of 331 | Fall 2023 |
| Arizona State | 89.9% | 8,009 of 8,906 | Fall 2025 |
| University of South Florida | 89.9% | 534 of 594 | Fall 2024 |
| Washington State | 89.4% | 1,032 of 1,154 | Fall 2023 |
| Virginia Commonwealth | 89.3% | 1,289 of 1,443 | Fall 2023 |
| UMass Lowell | 86.1% | 605 of 703 | Fall 2023 |
Arizona State is the one to notice. It admitted 8,009 international applicants in a single year, which is more than twenty-five times what Harvard admitted, at a rate close to nine in ten.
These are accredited universities offering the same F-1 visa, the same work rules and the same route to an American degree as the institutions that reject 97% of applicants.
Almost nobody who is admitted turns up
The second number in these filings is the one that explains the first, and it is the part no ranking mentions.
Michigan Tech admitted 845 international applicants and nine enrolled. The University of Mississippi admitted 374 and 42 enrolled. The University of Kentucky admitted 969 and 55 enrolled.
That means about one in a hundred of the students Michigan Tech admitted went there, about one in nine at Mississippi, and about one in eighteen at Kentucky. The University of Utah is the exception on this list, admitting 711 and enrolling 213, which is closer to one in three.
When so few of the students a university admits decide to go, it usually means they were applying there as a backup. They get in, and then they choose somewhere else. The place is still there and it is open to you. Most of the people offered it simply had somewhere they preferred.
That is worth knowing in both directions. It means your admission is close to certain. It also means you will arrive somewhere with a small international cohort in your year, because most of the people admitted alongside you went somewhere else.
Getting in is not the same as being able to pay
Being admitted and being funded are separate questions, and at this end of the table the second one is usually the harder one.
Our ranking of the cheapest US universities for international students covers what these places cost before any aid, and several of the universities above appear on it, which is not a coincidence. Large public universities that admit widely also tend to charge less.
A student from Uzbekistan who studies robotics at Arizona State has his full cost of attendance, housing, meals, flights and a stipend covered, through the El-Yurt Umidi Foundation rather than through the university. That is the model to copy at a university with a 90% acceptance rate: get in easily, fund it from somewhere else.
What to do with this list
Put one or two of these universities on your list. A list made entirely of universities that admit 2% of international applicants has a very small expected value, however strong you are.
Look at the price before you get excited about the odds. An easy admission at a price your family cannot meet is not an option, it is a letter.
Do not be put off by how few admitted students enrol. These universities are used as backups by thousands of students, which is precisely why the place is there for you.
A student who applied to 80 universities found the right fit in the end and advises most applicants to build a balanced list rather than copy that approach. A student from Bangalore at Pitt and a student from Brazil who won a full scholarship at Miami both ended up at universities that were not the most selective on their list.
Start your own journey
Look up the Common Data Set for every university you are considering. Search the university's name with "Common Data Set", open section C1, and find the residency breakdown. Divide international admitted by international applied. It takes a few minutes and it gives you a number that is about you rather than about American applicants.
Then check whether the residency rows add up to the totals, because at 23 of the universities we looked at they did not.
Kai, the Borderless AI college counselor, works out your odds at each university and balances your list so it is not made entirely of long shots. It's free to use.
Start with Kai, and read the stories from students who got in at both ends of this range.
