Kalshi files college admissions contracts with CFTC

Kalshi self-certified contracts on admission rates at 22 selective US colleges with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on October 19 and 20, filings show. The contracts cover all eight Ivy League schools plus Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Duke, the University of Chicago, UC Berkeley and UCLA.

Each contract settles on Item C1 of a school's Common Data Set, the standardized report published after decisions are released. Admissions officers, application readers, institutional research staff and vendors who process applications are all barred from trading, as are their household members.

Self-certification allows Kalshi to list a contract one day after notifying the CFTC. The Duke filing named October 20 as its first listing date, though the markets had not launched by Friday, according to Inside Higher Ed. Kalshi told The Chronicle of Higher Education it expects to launch before spring 2027 decision cycles.

The filings arrive as Kalshi faces active congressional scrutiny over identity verification and trade surveillance. The House Oversight Committee asked Kalshi and Polymarket in May how they flag suspicious activity. Kalshi has previously sanctioned a candidate who traded on his own election result and banned former congressman George Santos for life following an insider trading finding.