Cross-admit figures - how reliable?

JCBK
Sat, 19 Sep 2009 05:35:30 +0000

I am wondering how anybody really knows what the cross-admit figures of any 2 schools are. Granted, if a student matriculates at school X, then X knows that that student picks it. But how does X know that there are other schools that accept the student and the student rejects them? I’m sure that X can ask the student, but there may be student subjectivity here : some students may answer truthfully and completely, while others may not. So, from a matriculating school’s perspective, it does not have good data.

Conversely, from the rejected school’s perspective, it also does not have good data. If a student picks X and rejects Y, does Y know that the student is going to X? Again, some students may send back a card to Y, saying that he is going to X. But others may not even send anything back to Y. So, for all Y knows, the student may go to X, or A or B or C.

I would guess that the best source for universities would be the high schools’ guidance counselors, who presumably would know where their students are matriculating. But I wonder whether these counselors would summarize this info for the universities.

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