What Is the Trinity College Dublin Acceptance Rate 2026?

Thinking of applying to Trinity College Dublin? The oldest university in Ireland, and certainly one of its most prestigious and high-ranking, Trinity is increasingly sought after by applicants from all over the world.

But what is the Trinity College Dublin acceptance rate? Before you submit your application, you’ll want to know how competitive the admissions process is.

In this guide, we’ll go beyond the unofficial figures quoted online to discover the true acceptance rate at Trinity. We’ll also explore how competitive it is for international applicants, including those from the US, and Trinity’s SAT and ACT entry requirements.

What is the Trinity College Dublin acceptance rate?

Many online sources report that the Trinity College Dublin acceptance rate is 34-35%. This statistic is unofficial and inaccurate.

	Applications	Acceptances	Acceptance Rate
CAO Applicants	24,976	~3,300	~13%
US Applicants	2,865	~275	~10%

	Applications	Offers	Offer Rate
CAO Applicants	24,976	3,976	16%
US Applicants	2,865	2,024	71%

As we can see, the acceptance rate is roughly 13% for CAO applicants and 10% for US applicants. The offer rate is ~16% for CAO applicants, though it is much higher for US applicants (71%).

Notes:

• CAO Applicants are from Ireland, the UK, the European Union, the European Economic Area, and Switzerland.
• The offer rate = the % of applicants who are offered a place
• The acceptance rate = the percentage of applicants who are admitted into the university.
• Because not all students who are offered places end up attending (usually because they choose to go elsewhere), the offer rate is always higher than the acceptance rate.
• The 3,976 figure of offers to CAO applicants, from which the offer rate is calculated, is based on Round 1 offers only. However, Round 1 is believed to account for the vast majority of CAO applications and offers, so is reasonable to use as an estimate.

Calculating the Trinity College Dublin Acceptance Rate

Trinity only releases a limited amount of admissions data but a bit of digging across various official sources will reveal an approximate acceptance rate.

How many students apply to Trinity College Dublin?

The first step to calculating Trinity’s acceptance rate is working out its total number of applicants. Luckily, Trinity does publish this data. In 2025-26, it received applications from 24,976 CAO applicants.

What does this mean? Well, the CAO is the Central Applications Office – Ireland’s equivalent of UCAS, if you’re familiar with the UK university application system. Applicants to Irish universities from Ireland, the UK, the European Union, the European Economic Area, and Switzerland are all required to apply through the CAO.

In the Irish system, students can apply to up to ten courses through the CAO, including to multiple courses at the same university. There were just over 53,000 applications to Trinity through the CAO – meaning that on average, each student who applied to Trinity through the CAO applied to just over two courses.

To simplify slightly, then, 24,976 European students applied to Trinity last year.

How many students are accepted to Trinity College Dublin?

Now we know how many applied, to calculate Trinity College Dublin’s acceptance rate, we need to know how many got in.

There were 16,112 undergraduate students at Trinity in 2025-26. Most Trinity degrees are now four years, which would mean an intake of roughly 4,000 students per year. In 2016-17, Trinity’s undergraduate intake was 3,220 – allowing for some growth in the decade or so since, that 4,000 estimate seems reasonable.

But how many of these are students who applied through the CAO? There were 12,964 EU undergraduates at Trinity in 2025-26. There are also 305 from the UK, 24 from Norway, less than 10 from Iceland, 0 from Liechtenstein, and 19 from Switzerland. That gives us a CAO total of ~13,300 or roughly 3,300 per year.

Trinity’s CAO Acceptance rate

Using these numbers, we can now calculate the Trinity College Dublin acceptance rate for Irish and European applicants:

	CAO Applicants
Applicants	24,976
Offers (Round 1)	3,976
Admitted	~3,300
Offer rate	~16%
Acceptance rate	~13%

As you can see, Trinity’s acceptance rate is 13%. This is far lower than the widely quoted figure of 34%, and is in keeping with its status as one of Ireland’s most prestigious and selective universities. It is also similar to the University College Dublin acceptance rate.

In 2025-26, Trinity made 3,976 offers in Round 1 of the CAO process. Given that Trinity is believed to issue the vast majority of its offers in the first round, we can use these figures to calculate an approximate offer rate of 16%.

Trinity College Dublin International Acceptance Rate

	US Applicants
Applicants	2,865
Offers	2,024
Admitted	~275
Offer rate	71%
Acceptance rate	~10%

But what about non-CAO applicants? What is Trinity’s acceptance rate for US and other non-European students?

A Freedom of Information request revealed that Trinity offered places to 71% of US applicants in 2024/25. Trinity received 2,865 applications from students from the United States, among whom 2,024, or 71%, were offered places.

There are a few explanations for this large difference:

1. The 71% acceptance rate figure for the US is really the offer rate, not the acceptance rate. The offer rate is the % of applicants who are offered a place, whereas the acceptance rate is the percentage of applicants who are admitted into the university. Because not all students who are offered places end up attending, the offer rate is always higher than the acceptance rate.
   We know that there are 1,127 US undergraduates at Trinity, so roughly 275 admitted each year. 275 acceptances out of 2,865 applications is actually less than 10% – so lower than the acceptance rate for CAO applicants.
2. Nonetheless, the offer rate is much higher for US applicants than CAO applicants. This is partly due to the fact that the application process for US applicants has more steps and higher entry requirements than for CAO applicants (including SAT scores, GPA minimums, personal statement, and CV). This means that most US applicants are likely to be well qualified.
3. Finally, we cannot ignore the importance of fees. International students pay fees of €22,000 to €30,000 per year for most courses, and up to €50,000 for Medicine. Irish students have their (much lower) fees paid by the state. Trinity is therefore incentivised to admit more international applicants.

How hard is it to get into Trinity College Dublin?

For applicants from Ireland, the UK, and the rest of Europe, getting into Trinity is very competitive. With an acceptance rate of 13% – slightly lower even than Oxford or Cambridge – it is a very selective university.

For international applicants, the picture seems a bit more rosy. Trinity states that the acceptance rate for US students is much higher than at top US colleges – and the data confirms that this is the case (vs 5% acceptance rate for the Ivy League).

Trinity’s SAT requirements are 1250-1400, and its ACT requirements are 27-32. That places it comfortably a rung below the Ivy League or Ivy Plus in terms of selectivity.

Nonetheless, it still remains a very academic and competitive university. Its acceptance rate and entry requirements would place it on a par with other desirable European universities, like Bocconi or IE University – even if it is less selective than Oxbridge or the Ivy League.

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