<p>While these calculations and numbers may all be valid statistics, it is important to look at the whole picture. Yes, the admission rate may drop to under 9%, but one must examine WHY. There are about 5,000 more applicants this year than last year, but that does not mean that all these applicants have an equal chance of getting accepted. The number of new applicants is about 16% of the total applicants (correct me if I am wrong.) This is remarkably high. If this means that the U.S. population (we’re not looking at world statistics here) is growing at 16% a year, then these applicants all have an equal chance of admission. U.S. population is only growing at less than 1% a year, though! (just Google “US population growth statistics”) Therefore, we can conclude that the U.S. is not churning out 16% more extremely smart people every year. Therefore, these new applicants should not have SUCH a significant affect on admissions.
This is intended to be a reply to limabeans.</p>