<p>The last time I looked (last year?), Brown admitted about 35% of valedictorians, 35% of 750+ verbal, 35% OF 750+ math.</p>
<p>I looked today and all three numbers had dropped by a third, from 35% to 25%.</p>
<p>This is a huge change in just one or two years.</p>
<p>I don’t know if Brown is more unusual this way than other elite colleges. I don’t have the data. However, there are more and more applicants today to these highly selective universities and the overall acceptance rates have gone down and so it seems understandable that the rate of acceptance to those with certain class rank or SAT scores would also go down. </p>
<p>These very low rates of acceptance for those who clearly have TOP stats is why many of us here like to point out to prospies to elite colleges that that such low admit rate schools are a REACH for anyone, even if their stats are strong for the school. The admit rate automatically makes it chancy or reachy.</p>
<p>It also actually makes them less selective, less likely that any one school will actually admit the students best able to take advantage of what that particular school has to offer and then actually have them attend.</p>
<p>An interesting take on it.</p>
<p>It’s unclear to me what the OP means. Are 25% of the 750 scorers who apply now being admitted, instead of 35%, or are 25% of the admittees 750 scorers, instead of 35%?</p>
<p>It’s the former. It is based on the statistics of the entering class. So, it is saying that of all the valedictorians who applied, only 25% of them got in. It is not saying that 25% of the entering class were valedictorians.</p>
<p>So Brown admitted a third fewer students with SATS 750+ meaning that more students with lower SATs were admitted. Therefore, even tho the admit rate is lower (more students applying), it has actually become less selective in terms of SAT scores? (New to this - sorry if it’s obvious.)</p>
<p>^^Nevermind. I just got it!</p>
<p>No, it can mean that more applicants had very high scores, so lower % of them got accepted.</p>
<p>It is important to keep apples separate from the citrus!</p>
<p>For starters, inasmuch as the admitted students will yield the enrolled students, one cannot draw definitive conclusions without correctly identifying both groups. </p>
<p>In addition, a larger pool of candidates should not necessarily result is a LESS competitive pool of admitted students. On the other hand, an increasing loss of the strongest candidates to other schools (admitted but enrolling somewhere else) would have play a larger role in an erosion of the number of valedictorians and high scoring SAT students. </p>
<p>Lastly, changes in early admissions among rival schools can play havoc on year-to-year changes. For what it is worth, in its ascension out of the Ivy lower dungeons, Brown has never been a slouch in playing the early admissions’ game very well!</p>