Is the University of Washington harder to get into than Colgate University?

Colgate is harder to get into overall than the University of Washington. Colgate is a highly selective private liberal arts college with a smaller applicant pool and a more limited class size, while UW admits a much larger freshman class and serves a broad public-university mission. For most applicants, especially out-of-state students comparing both schools at a national level, Colgate is the tougher admit.

That said, the comparison changes a bit depending on who you are. A Washington state resident applying to UW may find it more accessible than an out-of-state applicant would, because UW gives significant attention to serving in-state students. Colgate does not have that public-state mission, so its selectivity is more uniformly high across the board.

These schools also attract different applicant profiles, which affects how “hard” they feel to get into. Colgate tends to draw students looking for a small, residential, discussion-heavy liberal arts environment, and admissions is very competitive within that self-selecting group. UW, especially for popular majors and direct admission pathways like computer science or engineering, can be extremely competitive even if the university as a whole is less selective than Colgate.

So if you mean overall university admission, Colgate is the more difficult one. If you mean admission to a specific high-demand UW program, that individual path could be just as hard, or in some cases harder, than getting into Colgate.