How come USC excludes its "Spring Admits" in its published acceptance rate?

College Search & Lists
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In recent news stories, USC announced that its acceptance rate for the Class of 2028 is 9.2%. That rate is based on roughly 7,600 Early Action + Regular Decision Fall 2024 Admits out of about 82,000 applications received.

However, USC also admits another ~ 1,400 students to enroll in the Spring semester, so the total acceptance rate for the incoming class is actually 11.0% (9,000 admits / 82,000 applicants).

Is USC the only school that reports its acceptance rate by excluding an entire cohort of students who actually did receive an acceptance, albeit for a later starting semester? It almost feels like USC is trying to manage the acceptance rate so that it’s < 10%. Not sure why.

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Because it makes them look more competitive which is good for marketing.

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Northeastern is another example of a school with a large number of “spring admits” (in NEU’s case, students who do not start on the Boston campus). At least in the past, these were not included in the published acceptance rate. (However, NEU has so many programs that it can be a bit confusing to categorize all the ways students can be admitted, and I haven’t been paying close attention since last year’s admission season.)

But many schools have spring admits, and I believe it’s standard practice not to include them in the published acceptance rate, because published rates are for “fall freshman admits.”

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Berkeley offers Fall Program for First Semester which is basically a spring admit.

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Of course, the difference is that admits to UC Berkeley’s Fall Program for First Semester count in the officially admitted counts for UC Berkeley’s incoming class. So, for example, last year’s admitted count of ~ 14,700 students in the Class of 2027 included the cohort of FPF kids. According to Berkeley, “To be eligible for FPF, you must be a newly admitted student in the College of Letters & Science (excludes transfers or returning students).”

In the past, Berkeley used to offer a Spring admit program, but that is no longer an option.

I suppose Berkeley could game it’s acceptance rate to be even lower than 11.7% if it went back to having an official Spring admit policy, but that seems unnecessary given how the rate already is.

Thanks for remining me about Northeastern’s “global campuses” – that seems to be a way that Northeastern has been able to report lower Fall acceptance rates to the Boston campus. For all I know, New York University might be doing something similar with its global campus program too.

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Given Northeastern’s history of rank gaming, it would not be surprising if that were the main motivation for these programs.

The other motivation would be to reduce the load in the fall semester, since there are typically more students enrolled in fall than spring. Special extension programs like FPF at UCB limit the participating students’ enrollment in popular courses that tend to get overloaded.

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This.

It’s the standard definition of admission rate in many school’s common data set to include only Fall admits.

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This is true, but doesn’t explain Northeastern not including NUIn students in their Fall acceptance numbers.

Separately, Tulane is another school with spring admits (Spring Scholars, which aren’t included in the Fall numbers.)

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Exactly!

For most people, low acceptance rate = prestigious school.
Schools know this well.

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Many colleges have a similar first semester abroad start admission. My son was admitted to BU with a January start in London. He declined. For some reason CC’ers only focus on NU - and trot out the old “gaming the system” - instead of simply explaining how NU moved up by doing things like encouraging 4 year graduations instead of five. Same as it ever was.

In the space of a few years NU’s applications have nearly doubled to close to 100,000 applicants, so apparently there is a lot of demand for their model.

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NU In students are not enrolled at Northeastern in the Fall. They are enrolled as visiting students at the overseas partner institutions.

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That article was posted yet again yesterday in another thread!

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Yes and No


NEU’s class of 2028 acceptance rate is now single-digit - ivy-level or even below. But most people probably would not consider it a prestigious school


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Yes, when my son was admitted to NUin last year, I remember how Northeastern changed his application in the portal to “Spring 2024.” So as they are technically spring admits, NUin admits are counted on the CDS in section C under “first-time freshmen who applied,” but don’t appear under “first-time freshmen who were admitted.”

I did read somewhere that Oakland Scholars DO appear under “first-time freshmen who were admitted” because it’s considered being admitted in the fall to a degree-granting institution? Is that correct? Or is Oakland considered a separate institution somehow?

What about Global Scholars and London Scholars? Since they arrive at the Boston campus in the fall of their second year, are they counted somehow under transfer admits in section D of the CDS? Or is it just like NUin where they are counted (in the year they applied) as “first-time freshmen who applied,” but aren’t counted as admits under either freshmen or transfers?

And now I also see that they have NU immerse and Foundation Year which are new programs I haven’t heard about before today. Do these students count as “first-time freshmen who were admitted”? Specialized Entry Programs | Undergraduate Admissions

Does anyone know how many students are admitted to all these different entry programs? I remember last year thinking that it seemed like a lot, and that it was very confusing to try to estimate Northeastern’s actual admit rate across all programs.

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Hi! You’ll note that I haven’t said anything about “gaming the system.”

With NEU’s admit rate as low as it is, it would still be low even if you doubled or tripled it by adding in a large number of invisible spring admits.

(And as far as I know, admit rate isn’t included in rankings, is it?)

However, it’s a fact that NEU is unusual in both the broad range of alternative entry programs, and number of students admitted and attending these programs, compared with the number of regular fall admits. Since these stats are not published anywhere, I think it’s interesting to try to figure out. It’s not meant to be criticism of NEU.

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It’s a long game and its definitely working. At any given time NEU or Colby’s admit rate will seem lower than its rep suggests but the strategy is having the effect of improving the rep of both schools over time. Which creates more applicants, allows them to enroll stronger applicants and gradually earn the reputation they sought.

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No, if you read this thread, another poster said that in this thread and other threads, not you. Anyway, I do think CC posters tend to pay little attention to the many other colleges that offer different admission starts. One of my kids applied to Clemson, which had a number of different options, including a summer start and a spring start.
IMO, CC posters seem to fixate on certain schools and ignore others. I’m kind of sick of it. Whatever. Nobody as far as I know ever really used CC to make a college decision. My kids surely did not. And thank goodness for that!:wink:

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you have to say, ‘pencils down’ somewhere on the calendar, and the Common Data Set directions specifically counts fall Admits. As does the federal IPEDS.

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I would gently direct you to any of the half-dozen or so threads to which students or parents have returned in the last few weeks to expressly thank the CC community for helpful suggestions and advice that shaped their college searches for the better. I understand that you feel Northeastern is unfairly treated here, and perhaps so - I have no dog in that fight. But please don’t denigrate the efforts of the community that are useful and beneficial to many others. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Glad other people think that. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, of course, and including me.:wink:. I do offer my opinions here in an effort to help others But also stand by all of my opinions expressed in this forum. Unlike others, I tend to only comment based on my personal knowledge and experience.

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