Is the University of Amsterdam harder to get into than Yale?

The biggest practical tradeoff is that Yale is selecting a very small, globally self-selected applicant pool through a highly holistic process, while the University of Amsterdam usually admits by whether you meet the stated academic requirements for a specific program. In plain terms, Yale is much harder to get into overall. UvA can still be competitive in certain programs, but it does not operate like Yale’s ultra-selective undergraduate admissions model.

Yale is one of the most selective universities in the world, and admission depends on far more than just meeting academic thresholds. Strong grades and rigor are expected, but so are standout extracurriculars, essays, recommendations, and a compelling overall profile.

The University of Amsterdam works much more like a European research university. For many bachelor’s programs, especially if they are non-numerus-fixus, the main question is whether you satisfy the published entry requirements.

So if your question is simply which school is harder to be admitted to in the broad sense, the answer is Yale by a very wide margin. The only real caveat is that UvA selectivity can vary meaningfully by program, whereas Yale’s overall undergraduate admission is consistently far more difficult.