Regular Decision at competitive schools: 2012 statistics are showing up

[fireflyscout]

It's going to be very interesting to see what happens when the dust settles on May 1 and what will happen with the waitlists. This is the 5th admission season I've observed on CC, and it's the most waitlisting/rejections I've ever seen reported.

[tokenadult]

I think if more competitive schools with an early round would turn their early round into a nonbinding early action round (as MIT, Caltech, Chicago, and I think Georgetown do), that would reduce the crush of applications somewhat. That would help students calibrate their "match" and "reach" lists by observing early round nonbinding results. The problem in the status quo is that there are too many colleges with SCEA (Yale and Stanford) or ED (a large number of highly desired colleges).

[gladmom]

tokenadult: Stanford's SCEA is nonbinding. If you are selected SCEA you don't have to make your decision until May 1. They do require that you don't apply early decision/action to any other school. They have a list of exceptions, such as, it's okay to apply to state schools with priority deadlines, schools with rolling admissions, etc.

All of my son's applications were sent before Stanford's early admission decision came out on Dec. 14. This date is not early enough to prevent students from making applications to other schools. Winter break usually starts around Dec. 21, and all of the high school-related things that you need to do for regular admission to many schools (requests for transcripts, teacher recommendations, counselor recommendations) must pretty much already be in your hand before mid-December. Our school’s deadlines for requests were Dec. 7. The kids don't get back to high school until after the regular decision dates have passed.

An applicant who has been accepted for non-binding early decision could accept the school's offer and withdraw his applications at other schools, lessening the frenzy for others. But I doubt that happens very often because they don't have finalized financial aid packages yet, and they want to compare all of their options.

[tokenadult]

They do require that you don't apply early decision/action to any other school.

Hi, gladmom, yes, that was the aspect of Yale and Stanford's early program I was focusing on. Sorry about the lack of clarity. The implication of SCEA is that a student can't test the waters at, say, MIT and Stanford at the same time, but will have to apply to one college or the other in the regular round.

Your point is well taken that everyone who expects financial aid, especially from a PROFILE college, pretty much has to keep applications pending into April to see what the financial aid offers are. Students who are interested in what the most selective--and highest list price--colleges have to offer simply need to have more than one application in the hopper.

[xiggi]

It's going to be very interesting to see what happens when the dust settles on May 1 and what will happen with the waitlists.

I agree that it will be interesting to evaluate the impact of the recent changes by the "big guns." However, if history provides any lessons, the number of students emerging from the waitlists is particularly small, except at schools that had "marketing" reasons to accept a smaller number in April and go to the waitlist after announcing their admission numbers in April.

By the way, if there is one policy that should be scrutinized, it ought to be the (ab)use of waiting lists that are extremely large in comparison to a school's current admitted numbers. I believe that every offer of being placed on a waittlist should come with DETAILED statistics about the last five years' success stories.

Of course, this information should be available on the Common Data Set forms, but not every one knows --or wants-- to see the information which clearly shows that the overwhelming number of wait list offers are nothing but a cynical and misleading form of rejection.

[xiggi]

Number of applicants 4,178
Number admitted 799
Admission rate 19%

Out-of-state 60%
Californians 40%
International 8%

Female 53%
Male 47%

[carolyn]

Reed's class of 2012: 31% admit rate, average GPA of admitted applicants, 4.03, average math/reading SAT 1409.

[sybbie719]

Dartmouth announced today that it has extended offers of admission to 2,190 applicants for its Class of 2012, from a pool of 16,536 - the largest of number of applicants in the College's history and 2,361 more than applied for last year's entering class -- an increase of more than 16.6 percent.

The admissions rate was tighter this year at 13.2 percent

93.4 percent were ranked in the top 10 percent of their secondary school's graduating class, including 38.5 percent who were valedictorians and 11.3 percent who were salutatorians. The mean of their SAT scores are: 726 for Verbal, 731 for Math and 726 for Writing.

The numbers of men and women admitted were virtually even -1,090 and 1,100 respectively.

The College admitted 178 international students representing 59 nations this year.

The Class of 2012 includes 324 first-generation college students, comprising 14.8% of the admitted group.

Admittees come from across the nation as well as around the world: 324 from New England; 615 from the Mid-Atlantic; 216 from the Midwest; 368 from the South; and 441 from the West, with the remainder having a non-U.S. address.

Dartmouth News - From its largest pool of applicants for undergraduate admissions to date, Dartmouth invites 2,190 to join the Class of 2012- 03/31/08

[lastone]

Just more than 6 percent of the record 20,118 applicants will receive acceptance letters, compared to rates around 10 percent in previous years, with the target size for the Class of 2012 being 1,240 to 1,250 students, Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye said in January.

The University will confirm the admissions statistics later this afternoon.

[wjb]

From the Yale Daily News: Yale accepts 8.3 percent -- 1892 of 22813 applicants.

Yale Daily News - The Nation's Oldest College Daily

[wjb]

From the Harvard Crimson: Harvard accepts 7.1 percent -- 1948 of 27462 applicants

The Harvard Crimson :: News :: College Admissions Rate Drops to 7.1%

[tokenadult]

Harvard is guessing, by how many students it has offered admission, that yield could be as high as 85 percent. Wow.

[sly_vt]

Off topic, but can't resist: If you follow the Yale link, there's also a story about College Confidential. And the Harvard story is written by someone whose name I'm pretty sure I recognize as a regular CC poster last year.

On topic: some of these acceptance percentages are staggeringly low.

[msjhop]

"Columbia College received a total of 19,116 applications, a 5.7 percent increase from last year’s numbers, and admitted only 1,660. The overall admit rate of 8.7 percent is the lowest ever in the College’s history.

The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science experienced a similar surge in the number of applications received, admitting 609 students out of a pool of 3,463, for an admit rate of 17.6 percent. The combined admit rate for CC and SEAS was 10 percent."

[JHS]

That Daily Princetonian summary has to be a bit off, since it implies that Princeton was planning to assume a 100% yield on its acceptances. Princeton was in an especially difficult situation. It used to accept half of its class ED, and had a relatively low yield on its RD acceptances (compared to its main rivals, about 50%). It's hard to imagine Princeton accepted many fewer or more than 1,750 applicants, which would mean an acceptance rate a little higher than 8.5%.