Regular Decision at competitive schools: 2012 statistics are showing up

[tokenadult]

will the craziness start to diminish next year?

Regular readers of CC have perhaps seen my FAQ on demographics in which I say no.

DEMOGRAPHICS

Population trends in the United States are not the only issue influencing the competitiveness of college admission here. The children already born show us what the expected number of high school students are in various years, but the number of high school students in the United States, which is expected to begin declining in a few years, isn't the whole story.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/ed...nted=2&_r=1&hp

First of all, if more students who begin high school go on to college, there will be more applicants to college even with a declining number of high school students. And that is the trend in the United States and worldwide.

Second, colleges in the United States accept applications from all over the world, so it is quite possible that demographic trends in the United States will not be the main influence on how many students apply to college. The cohorts of high-school-age students are still increasing in size in some countries (NOT most of Europe).

Third, even if the number of applicants to colleges overall stays the same, or even declines, the number of applicants to the most competitive colleges may still increase. The trend around the world is a "flight to quality" of students trying to get into the best college they can in increasing numbers, and increasing their consensus about which colleges to put at the top of their application lists. I do not expect college admission to be any easier for my youngest child than for my oldest child, even though she is part of a smaller birth cohort in the United States.

And now I would add to this that at the very most selective colleges that have just announced new financial aid plans, next year's (and the following year's) crush of applicants will be larger than ever. When colleges that are already acknowledged to be great colleges start reducing their net cost down to what the majority of families in the United States can afford, those colleges will receive more applications from all parts of the United States, and very likely from all over the world.

[CBK]

The other international contribution I thought of this year is the very weak dollar. Their $$ can buy a heck of alot more than our dollar can buy in education dollars

[guillaume]

Dean J,
where are those numbers? I couldn't find them in the link you gave.

[mamabear1234]

If you click on his link, and scroll down to the fifth topic, the heading says Statistics for the Class of 2012. Click on read more under the dog's picture!

[tokenadult]

It's bad usability not to make a link look like a link, but I found the U VA info.

http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/2...s-of-2012.html

Isn't Dean J referred to as "she"?

[guillaume]

thanks guys. Yeah Dean J is a she.

[ohio_mom]

UChicago is a little under 28% thus far - from Libby Pearson's blog:

"You know that we saw a 45 percent increase in early action applications. With the 10 percent increase in regular notification applications, the boost in applications leveled out to a 20 percent increase overall--12,300 applicants. We also admitted fewer students – around 3,400 instead of our usual 3,600. We put more students on the waiting list and hope to use it more than we did last year, the number to be determined by the kind of response we get by May 1."

[DonnaL]

To break those numbers down further, the Early Decision acceptance rate was about 33%, and the rate of acceptances for the pool of Regular Decision applicants plus deferred applicants appears to have been only about 19%.

To put this in perspective, the overall 27.6% acceptance rate this year at the University of Chicago compares to a rate of about 36% last year, and 40% the year before that. The way things are going, they'll be in Ivy League territory pretty soon in terms of acceptance rates. (They're already there in terms of academics.)

Donna (proud parent of a very happy son J., who used to post on the University of Chicago forum as "mosevios" [a slight misspelling of my mother's maiden name!], and who was accepted at the U of C last week)

[Zamzam]

BU gave accepted students the acceptance data. Let me do some copypasta:

Applicants: 38,004
Projected Enrollment: 4,200

High School Class Rank
* Boston University Four-Year Colleges
Top 10% — 67%
Top 15% — 81%
Top 25% — 94%

* Boston University Total
Top 10% — 61%
Top 15% — 81%
Top 25% — 94%

Average Rank in Class

* Boston University Four-Year Colleges
Top 91%

* Boston University College of General Studies
Top 79%

Grade Point Average

* Boston University Four-Year Colleges
3.6 (Predominantly A-)

* Boston University College of General Studies
3.3 (Predominantly B+)

Standardized Tests
SAT (CR/MT) / SAT (WR) / ACT
* Boston University Four-Year Colleges (average)
1332 / 665 / 29
* Boston University Four-Year Colleges (Middle 50%)
1260-1400 / 620-710 / 28-31
* Boston University College of General Studies (average)
1182 / 603 / 26
* Boston University College of General Studies (Middle 50%)
1130-1230 / 560-640 / 24-27

Valedictorians: 457
Salutatorians: 275

Geographic Diversity:

* Mid-Atlantic: 37%
* New England: 25%
* Pacific (incl. AK and HI): 15%
* South (incl. PR): 9%
* Midwest: 8%
* Southwest: 4%
* West: 2%

[soproudofkids]

I think this year has been much more competitive than 2 years ago when my oldest S applied, especially as predicted for the girls. My D has been rejected from more than one school that was a real surprise. I think as someone mentioned that kids really are getting rejected for having no room, not because they are not qualified.

But as a wise person said to me yesterday---"it only takes one" and we've already got at least one

[mammall]

^^^ Oh please, TokenAdult - give me some crumb of hope that my second child won't face quite the maelstrom that we are witnessing right now. If things are really just going to keep getting more competitive, I'm going to start cultivating her love for extreme safeties right now.

[ctmomof3]

I know GW also had an all time record low acceptance rate, I think someone said its 33% this year, but don't yet know the exact statistics.

[rodney]

"I'm going to start cultivating her love for extreme safeties right now."

A little birdie told me to do that this year.....So far that little birdie was very, very wise....D has been accepted at all safeties and 1 match, waitlisted at 1 match......the other matches have become reaches between October and now......(that is what could not be accounted for....)

[SmithMom]

This is the peak year for number of high school graduates, but since the number goes down gradually in the next few years, next year won't be that much less competitive. It is true that the number of high school graduates going to college could increase, but no one knows if that will happen.

[menloparkmom]

mammall,
That would be a very wise strategy to take. As many veteran parents on CC have repeatedly suggested, students should build their college list from the bottom up- find the safeties that they would be happy at, and then look for matches and reaches. And congrats on your D's acceptance at Stanford!