Are acceptance rates for highly selective colleges accurate? Or are they made smaller due to vast amounts of unqualified applicants? For the qualified applicant within the stat range, is the rate for a school like Harvard higher than 3-4%?
You can rely on the acceptance rates published in the Common Data Set (CDS) to be accurate.
Actually, at most highly selective colleges, the vast majority of applicants (likely over 80%) are academically well-qualified.
The stats of accepted students are often very similar to those of rejected students.
As a result, these schools rely heavily on other factors to make decisions: letters of recommendation, essays, extracurriculars, and overall class shaping.
3-4% is the average acceptance rate - so the chances are higher for some candidates, and lower for others.
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Unless a student has a hook (ex. recruited athlete, child of a huge donor, etc) assume the stated acceptance rates are good guide.
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The entire question is confounding to me.
Are they accurate? They publish them so I’d assume so.
Are they made smaller due to vast amounts of unqualified applicants?? Define unqualified - whoever doesn’t get in?
Yes, lots apply who don’t meet statistical figures and in fact, some schools market to these people, perhaps to get them to apply to keep rates lower. Why else does U Chicago and WUSTL send app waivers late to people who never expressed interest?
If the only people applied met the 25th percentile statistically or above, yes acceptance rates would be higher - because they’d have less applications in the denominator. But many of those people - and even those at the 75th percentile, get rejected too.
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Generally, 60% to 65% of applicants to highly selective colleges are realistically eligible for admission. Beyond this, applicants of domestic origin tend to gain acceptance at rates much greater than those of international origin.
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There was an article in the Stanford alumni magazine a number of years ago that discussed admissions. They estimated that 80% of the applicants to Stanford are academically fully qualified to attend and do well.
I have heard estimates that 85% of applicants to MIT are qualified to attend. One issue here is that MIT has a reputation of being academically challenging, which leads to some self-selection of candidates. IMHO this reputation is well earned.
For Stanford, and the Ivy League schools, and most other universities, these stats are somewhat skewed in that they include recruited athletes, who are of course way more likely to be accepted.
If we look at the Stanford numbers, let’s assume that the acceptance rate is 4%, and that 80% of applicants are qualified. This would mean that the acceptance rate only considering qualified applicants is 5%. However, then you need to subtract the number of recruited applicants that were accepted. Assuming that you are academically qualified but you are not a recruited athlete, this might put your chances back to about 4%, or maybe less.
There are a few applicants for whom the stats may be adjusted. As one example, I knew someone as an undergraduate at MIT who had won a significant international competition and whose father was the head of state of a medium sized country. I expect that her chances were probably better than the average applicant. I have occasionally heard of young Nobel prize winner or the children of famous people (such as presidents) attending famous universities (eg Chelsea Clinton attended and graduated from Stanford). Again, if none of this applies to you then this might reduce your chances.
However, I do not think that it is possible to give a precise number for your chances of acceptance to a highly ranked university. There are a lot of universities. Some students do get to attend the famous ones. You apply and see what happens.
Also apply to safeties.
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From another post you say you are an incoming 9th grader. PLEASE do not spend your time and energy focusing on hyper-competitive colleges before you even set foot in HS.
When the time comes, I imagine the guidance counselors at your “prestigious private HS” will work with you to create an college application list that makes sense.
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Yes they are accurate. The admission rates are so ridiculously low at the top schools, one has to wonder how many truly unqualified applicants, unless perhaps pushed by parents, bother to complete an application!!
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