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Huh? According to US News (a source you even cited) there are 23, actually. I have no idea where you got two from.</p>
<p>[Top</a> 100 - Lowest Acceptance Rates | Rankings | US News](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/lowest-acceptance-rate]Top”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/lowest-acceptance-rate)</p>
<p>Uchicago is also below 15%, but they meant two handfuls I’d assume.</p>
<p>That was an awkward sentence, with a typo. i’ll reword it:</p>
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<p>There are around 2,000 colleges in the U.S. So yes, 11 out of those 2000 is a handful, or at most two.</p>
<p>I imagine that most universities can’t do this because their yield is significantly lower than many of the institutions listed above.</p>
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<p>Many of those schools (naval academy, LACs, specialty schools [e.g. Curtis and Juliard]) aren’t universities, and hence, don’t refute my point.</p>
<p>And yes, I meant two handfuls (sorry again for my awkward phrasing.)</p>
<p>^ Yeah. The list US News posted uses acceptance rates for Fall 2011, so with more recent data there are probably even more schools under 15%.</p>
<p>I have to agree with the posters who mentioned “free applications” and “aggressive marketing” as reasons for lower acceptance rates. DD was very aggressively recruited by many schools, such as Fordham and Siena, offering her expedited common app with no admission fee and no essay. How many extra applications do schools get with those kind of offers? It’s part of how you work the system to improve your US News ranking. Get lots ot kid to apply for free, even if they have no intention of coming, and suddenly you are turning away more! The aggressive marketing prize goes to Columbia. Columbia wasn’t on DD’s radar, didn’t really fit what she was looking for. But after the barrage of e-mails and snail mails she received from them, she was tempted to apply “just to see if she would get in”. Since Columbia didn’t offer a free application, and is one of the most costly apps in the country, we said no. But the high-pressure tactics certainly work - look at the increase in Columbia’s applications over the past few years. I’m guessing it correlates to their implementing a marketing program that puts the full court press on students.</p>
<p>I’d venture that it’s not just a correlation. Schools with higher rankings (which, if we an admit it, come largely from selectivity) likely attract more qualified professors and students, leading them to become, well, better schools.</p>
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<p>No, most faculty aren’t that shallow. But they do have their own markers of prestige, which mostly go to the perceived quality of the faculty in their own field. So, for example, for a sociologist it’s extremely prestigious to be on the sociology faculty at Wisconsin which for generations has had one of the very best sociology faculties in the nation and in the world. For most sociologists, Wisconsin is a bigger deal than some school that is more highly ranked in US News but has a weaker sociology department. Other factors come into play, too, like compensation, research support, facilities, and particular colleagues a faculty member may want to work with. The quality of the students matters some, too, but frankly at most research universities the quality of the graduate students is more important than the quality of the undergrads.</p>
<p>Pay little attention to that. Many great schools are self-selective (Reed, St. Johns, etc…)</p>
<p>Many schools with lower admissions credentials than U Chicago have lower acceptance rates.</p>
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<p>Oh my. There’s a guy from the college I plan to go too who has been making videos for them. He’s like so awesome. I saw him twice on tours I took and he is the loudest most entertaining tour guide you could get. I wish I had been able to take a tour with him…</p>
<p>The year Elon eliminated “Topic of Your Choice” from their essay options on their application, the number of applications dropped 15%. Of course that raised the % of kids they accepted, because their incoming class size remained the same. Does that mean the quality of their education dropped? Of course not. Elon’s not on the Common App, which may be one reason their admit rate hovers around 50% (astronomically high by College Confidential terms!) If they went to the Common App and let people submit a generic essay, I’m sure the number of applications would soar. But by not going that route, they help to weed out a large number of kids who are just throwing in another application, and narrow their applicant pool to kids who are more serious about attending. They appear less selective, but I’m not sure the stats of the kids who ultimately attend Elon would be any higher if they had more applications.</p>
<p>You also need to consider that the acceptance percentage rate is manipulated by ED admissions. Those taken spots are deducted from regular decision and figured into the regular decision admission rate. So a school may have half of their entering class already filled by the time regular decision rolls around.</p>
<p>Very interesting input from all. From a personal standpoint, DS1 applied to Chicago and Northwestern and got into both 4 years ago. DS2 who has better stats overall has a significantly lower chance of getting. Chicago had a 26% acceptance rate when DS1 applied, now DS2 is facing a 9% acceptance rate…the common app, fewer required essays and aggressive marketing means he probably won’t get into his #1 pick when he probably would have 4 years ago. Huge bummer for him.</p>
<p>The bright side? DS1 turned down Chicago and NU, picked a middle tier school that was particularly good for his major. He got a fantastic scholarship and had an amazing four years with enormous opportunities for mentoring, fellowships, research. Being a bigger fish in a medium pond meant lots of personal attention for him and not one penny of debt when he graduates.</p>
<p>Picking the right school for you, your finances, your major and not overlooking the hidden opportunities is the strategy. Obsessing over US News rankings is bad for most people and most colleges.</p>
<p>i would say that you look into the freshmen retention rate, since it provides u an idea of how much freshmen actually like the atmosphere!</p>
<p>I am not sure that your DS2 has a lower chance. If indeed he has a lower chance, then the admission standard has been raised. If the increase of applicants lowers the overall quality of applicants, then the lower admission rates do not mean a lower chance for your DS2. If top students apply for a lot more colleges, then the yields would be lower and colleges have to admit more students to fill the same number of spots. </p>
<p>For upper middle class families, there are always decisions to be made to attend a top college without much financial aids or attend a state university with a full-ride or full tuition scholarship.</p>
<p>A prof told me that a reliable method (for rankings) is looking at the USNWR “Best undergrad teaching” list. But I mean, seriously! How can you objectively label the quality of a school based on a ranking?</p>
<p>I would try to get an idea for the reputation of the certain dept. you’re looking at. How many faculty are there? Where did they get their PhDs?</p>
<p>I can live with that rbouwens ;)</p>
<h1>1 Dartmouth College</h1>
<h1>1 Princeton University</h1>
<h1>3 Miami University (Ohio)</h1>
<h1>4 Brown University</h1>
<h1>4 Yale University</h1>
<h1>6 College of William and Mary</h1>
<h1>6 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor</h1>
<h1>8 Duke University</h1>
<h1>8 University of California-Berkeley</h1>
<h1>8 University of Chicago</h1>
<h1>8 University of Maryland-Baltimore County</h1>
<h1>8 University of Notre Dame</h1>
<h1>13 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill</h1>
<h1>13 Wake Forest University</h1>
<h1>15 Stanford University</h1>
<p>Seriously I have no idea how anybody can effectively quantify or measure teaching quality university-wide. I can see how a particular professor can be evaluated for a particular course in a specific term. However, I cannot imagine how anybody can effectively measure the quality of instruction at a college or university with hundreds, if not thousands, of professors teaching thousands of classes. </p>
<p>Still, it is good to see large public universities like Cal, Michigan and UNC do well because they are usually victim of generalization and myth. From personal experience, I can confidently vouch for the quality of instruction and faculty attention at Michigan, although I can imagine that there are literally dozens of universities with equally great undergraduate teaching.</p>
<p>Those rankings aren’t even trying to evaluate quality of teaching, but the emphasis a school puts on undergraduate teaching.
They are schools that have “a particular focus on undergraduate teaching”, no matter how good this teaching is. Clearly if we put U’s and LAC’s together in this ranking all the LAC’s would win, but if we actually found a way to measure quality, I wonder which schools would come out on top, and it would likely not be many of the schools on that list.</p>
<p>^Wow. That is really disheartening.</p>
<p>Those ranking only reflect kids who filled out the survey, and they vary completely according to who does the polling.</p>
<p>NYU’s acceptance rate does not reflect the quality of its program – just the desirability of its location.</p>
<p>Acceptance rates reflect prestige even more than the quality of the education, but for certain professions that is a factor.</p>
<p>I would look at SAT ranges for a very bright kid because the peer group sets the level of the class most.</p>
<p>Studies have shown that community college teachers and elite factory do not differ in education or preparation. Circumstances and temperament determine where a grad student lands in a teaching job.</p>
<p>Therefore, there are great teachers everywhere, but the program is only as strong as the other students. In the humanities the quality of the discussion is impacted; in the sciences the talent of lab partners.</p>
<p>The correlation between admit rate and SAT CR 25th percentile is - .70 which means that admit rate has a moderately high correlation with quality as measured by SAT. This is based on 355 public and private universities and LACs with SAT CR 25th above 500 from the IPEDS database.</p>
<p>But, why use an imperfect proxy like admit rate when you can look directly at quality indicators like SAT, ACT, and graduation rate?</p>