Is Harvard or Brown harder to get into overall?

The biggest practical tradeoff is that both are extreme reaches, but Harvard is usually viewed as the tougher admit overall because it draws an even broader applicant pool, has more global name recognition, and is often a top-choice school for students with the very strongest academic and extracurricular profiles. Brown is also intensely selective, but in most admissions conversations Harvard sits a step above in raw difficulty. That difference is real, though not big enough to make Brown feel remotely “safe.”

Part of the perception comes from applicant behavior. Many students who are competitive for Brown also apply to Harvard, and Harvard tends to attract especially heavy overlap from top applicants worldwide. Harvard also gets a huge volume of applications from students who see it as the most recognizable reach on their list, which keeps the bar extraordinarily high.

Brown’s admissions process has its own distinct appeal, especially for students drawn to the Open Curriculum and a more flexible academic culture. That means Brown can feel especially hard for applicants who are not clearly aligned with that style, even if Harvard is still considered tougher in the broadest sense. In other words, Harvard is usually harder overall, while Brown can be very difficult in a more school-specific way.

So if the question is simply which school is generally considered harder to get into overall, the answer is Harvard. Brown is still one of the most selective colleges in the country, so for college list building, it makes more sense to treat both as high reaches rather than assuming there is a meaningful safety gap between them.