<p>b@r!um, the numbers are very clear that the increase is due to international students, both due to an increase in the number of middle class population among developing countries and the deterioration of the global financial situation in many countries. I am not talking about selectivity because the same profile student has been accepted at each school, regardless whether the applicant pool is 10k or increased to 30k. I looked at the naviance stats in some top schools and their yield has remained the same. Also, domestic applicants have the extensive naviance stats for their school so they know where they have a high probability to be admitted since every student in their school has applied to a US school. Even if an international school uses naviance, the data is limited because not all students apply to the US schools. If the increase in applications were due to pressure to domestic applicants to apply to as many top schools as possible, then the increase would be spread across the board, yet we see Williams, the top LAC, and one that gets high HYPS crossadmits having a steady applicant pool of 6-7k for the last five years. Georgetown had a steady 15k until 2007-08 when they went online but used their own application and the pool went to 18k but shoot to 20k this year. It also could not be due to domestic financial reasons since again the increase would have been spread across the board as US applicants have access to federal aid and private lending. Nor could it be due to the commonapp as UChicago had 12,381 but went to 13,600 when it adopted it in 2007. Last year it had 21k applicants, this year 25k. Columbia and UMichigan just joined the commonapp this year, and neither MIT, UF, UCs, UT have joined. Would not pressured domestic students apply in equal numbers to other schools, especially top LAC? MIT does not accept the commonapp, has a STEM niche and it is popular for internationals primarily from India/Pakistan/Bangladesh and bottom first tier Chinese. Top Europeans prefer to attend their own universities for undergrad and come to the US for grad school. That’s why the applicant pool has remained ~18k.</p>