I want to thank @AustenNut for jump starting the “Colleges with admit rates over X” series, inspiring this thread.
What are colleges with admit rates over 50%, and that have areas of excellence where they are recognized as one of the country’s best (and the admit rate for those areas is also over 50%)?
Some that come to mind are:
Arizona’s strength in astronomy and astrophysics.
Iowa’s reputation for writing
Missouri’s strength in journalism
I am sure there are many more. Let’s list them, so we can advise students about them.
ETA: I would like to leave out specialty colleges that only focus on one very specific area. So for example, a liberal arts college that excels in theatre is fine as long as they also offer degrees, like say biology. Likewise, an engineering college is fine, as long as it offers multiple engineering majors.
I wonder if those all meet the admission requirement in the major ? Same with the majors below.
Arizona State and Michigan State in Supply Chain.
Arizona in MIS.
Delaware ChemE
UNLV and UCF Hospitality Management
BYU - Accounting.
Houston. - entrepreneurship
Col School of Mines - Petroleum
engineering.
Utah - Game Design
Oklahoma, Penn State, Mississippi State (for broadcast meteorology) are all tops in Meteorology. Purdue too.
Rose Hulman says this: Rose-Hulman also earned No. 1 rankings nationally in two academic department categories this year: Electrical engineering and mechanical engineering. The civil engineering and computer engineering programs were both ranked No. 2, while computer science is ranked among the top 10% of the nation’s undergraduate programs.
Fair point. All three colleges I listed had overall admit rates over 80%.
Mizzou’s School of Journalism has an admit rate of 77%. I suspect that for Arizona, a student would just need to be admitted to the College of Science, and for Iowa to the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.
University of Hawaii has an admission rate of 70% and automatic frosh admission for Hawaii resident students with a 3.2 GPA and the specified course work completed.
It offers some academic areas that are hard to find elsewhere, such as Pacific Islands Studies and languages like Hawaiian, Maori, Samoan, and Tahitian.
Cal Poly Humboldt has an admission rate of 83%, although it admits at the CSU baseline (specified courses completed in high school with 2.5 GPA for California residents, 3.0 GPA for non-residents) for all majors except for RN->BSN nursing.
It has this major which may not be too common elsewhere.
Colorado State University - close to 90% acceptance rate. Consistently ranked one of the top Wildlife Biology programs.
One caveat is that it seems that many kids that are admitted to the program switch to other majors within Natural Resources when they can’t pass the math and science requirements.
Lycoming College in Pennsylvania. 68% acceptance rate and has a pretty stellar program in astronomy. It’s a very close drive to one of the few dark sky parks in the northeast.
Rutgers - Newark. Hard to say exactly what the acceptance rate is for the b-school at Newark, but I’ve seen estimates of around 70% (everyone wants New Brunswick). BUT, the Center for Supply Chain Management is actually based in Newark and it’s one of the best in the country.
Muhlenberg has an excellent musical theater program that is not audition based and a safety for most acting/MT students
There are countless auditon based programs for Acting, MT and music that are in schools with greater than 50% acceptances rates, but I dont think that is the question so I wont list them
St. Olaf has an admit rate right around 50% (I think they dipped under 50% this last year for the first time), and is nationally recognized for math and statistics.
University of Delaware- overall admit rate in the 60% range and a fantastic undergrad program in Art History/Art Conservation. Its renowned program in Museum Studies is a grad level program, but best to start in Art History (or conservation) for a career in Museums whether curator or other.
University of Maine- admissions rate very high. One of the top programs in Forestry.
College of the Atlantic- admit rate around 60%, has only one major- Human Ecology. Gorgeous location and a highly focused and interdisciplinary approach.
Four private colleges which are excellent for engineering but which have acceptance rates over 50% are:
58% - Worcester Tech
59% - RPI
73% - Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
82% - Manhattan University
Payscale has done a ranking of all colleges in the country based on the earnings of their graduates, both early career and mid career. Here is his the graduates of those 3 colleges rank for alumni holding a bachelor’s degree, as compared to every other college in the country:
28 - WPI
29 - Rose-Hulman
33 - RPI
43 - Manhattan
These high rankings are probably due to the fact that engineering can be a lucrative field, but it still tells us that graduates of these schools do very well.
Rhodes right at 50% acceptance.
It has very strong premed and prelaw. Top 10 mock trial teams (they have 2) in the USA.
Also growing CS and Environmental studies.