On Kalshi, a prediction market site, users can bet on anything from an NBA game to the 2028 presidential nominee. Soon, they will be able to make another bet, this time on Brown’s acceptance rate.
On Oct. 20, Kalshi filed a notice with the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission stating that the company would open prediction markets on undergraduate acceptance rates and applicant numbers at Brown. Kalshi has filed similar notices for 21 other universities, including every Ivy League school.
According to Associate Provost for Enrollment and Dean of Undergraduate Admission Logan Powell, the Office of College Admission is not involved in Kalshi’s prediction market “beyond what everyone else can see in news coverage and the company’s publicly accessible filings.”
Kalshi’s filing states that employees in the Office of College Admission and other individuals with admissions information that is not publicly disclosed are not eligible to trade on the admissions data.
“My entire staff and I all sign certificates of integrity at the beginning of every admission cycle to ensure that our work is conducted with the highest ethical standards,” Powell wrote.
The company has not yet opened the college acceptance rate market to traders on the app.
If markets open, there will be options to make predictions on the University’s admissions data, including whether Brown’s admission rate and total number of applicants will be above, below or between certain values for a given admissions cycle. Users can make these bets until Dec. 31 or one week after the University’s Common Data Set — which provides standardized admissions information — is released for the most recent admitted class, whichever occurs first. The filing does not include options to bet on more specific admissions statistics, such as early decision applicant numbers.
Assistant Professor of Economics Spencer Kwon, who studies motivations behind gambling, said that he thinks young people would be interested in the opportunity to bet on “higher education topics.”
According to Kwon, people’s motivations for gambling can range from entertainment to “desperation reasons and reaching for unattainable goals.”
David Chanin ’27 has used Kalshi before and said he enjoys using the app, but only with “very small amounts of money.” He believes that individuals using Kalshi’s prediction market on Brown’s admissions data will be competing against people who know “a lot about Brown University admissions.”
“It’s a difficult market to trade on,” he added. “You’re likely to lose.”
Kalshi did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
