International School Manila (ISM) has announced that 16 members of its 2019 graduating class have been accepted into the world’s top universities, including seven of the eight Ivy League schools: Brown University, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Harvard College, Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University.

The 16 students represent a milestone, a record number among ISM’s accepted college applicants.

Admission into these prestigious universities has become more difficult.

The University of Pennsylvania had the largest drop in its acceptance rate—from 8.4 percent in 2018 to 7.4 in 2019.

Harvard continues to be exceptionally selective, with a 4.5 percent success rate for applicants. Only 1,950 students were accepted out of 43,330 applicants.

Columbia’s acceptance rate was 5.1 percent: 2,190 students gained admission from 42,569 applications.

Stanford—one of the most competitive universities also on the list—had the lowest acceptance rate of 4.29 percent in 2018.

With a range of talents and interests, ISM’s 2019 graduates will be matriculating in many other competitive colleges in September: Boston College, Duke University, New York University, Tufts University, Swarthmore College, Pomona College and UC Berkeley in the USA; McGill University, the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia in Canada; Durham University, Imperial College London, University College London, Imperial College London, St. Andrews University and the University of Bath in the United Kingdom.