<p>Just curious. I know that means under half were accepted, but it still seems much higher than the ivies etc. I have a 3.7 GPA and pretty good ECs.</p>
<p>It depends on the grades, test scores, etc. of the applicants. For example, if a college accepts 42% of a very high-achieving pool, it would be harder to get in with a low GPA than it would be to a college that accepts 20% of a pool of low-achievers.</p>
<p>It’s Macalester.</p>
<p>depends at a public school acceptance rates can be deceiving because for an in-state applicant your acceptance rate is probably much higher than someone who is out of state</p>
<p>however Macalester takes 82 percent out of state so if you are OOS you should be fine, but the ACT range is 28-32 which is the same as Michigan, UPenn, and Cornell so I would assume its pretty competitive to get in</p>
<p>If you are in the top quarter of the test scores of a school that accepts 42% and your grades are right up there as well, you have an excellent chance of getting accepted most of the time. However, that is just a generality. I know that some of my son’s choices this year really had a drop in acceptances when the prior year rates were in that 40%+ range, and the selectivity was even lower for those who applied RD. This was even for schools that had EA rather than ED, and for some schools with heavy ED acceptances, the numbers can be even more deceiving when you see that 40% acceptance rate. Other factors like geographics and sex that are usually just tip factors can figure in heavily for schools in this acceptance range. </p>
<p>I know at my son’s school, the vast majority of kids are accepted at 40% acceptance rate schools, so your highschool can also make a difference.</p>
<p>In an absolute sense, once a college chooses to admit fewer than half its applicants, it is typically considered a competitive selection process. Obviously, though, a lower acceptance rate can often imply a more selective college. However, exceptions do happen, namely in college which tend to have a more self-selective pool, typically technical colleges. One example, though even they are becoming more selective numerically, is Harvey Mudd. I remember a few years back when I was applying it was in the upper 30s, if not, lower 40s, but obviously you’re dealing with students with generally killer applications (though even they have dropped to the upper 20s).</p>
<p>@ CIA</p>
<p>It’s not very selective but still selective regardless. There’s less than a 50% chance a student will be admitted to that particular college.</p>
<p>The admissions landscape at a particular school can change dramatically. All admissions rates are rear view mirror information. Applications at some schools have shown increases of 20% from year to year and cause acceptance rates to drop significantly. I’m not saying this will happen at Macalester, but it could happen.</p>
<p>Consider the University of Richmond’s acceptance rates over the past 3 years.
Class starting Fall 06: 46%; 5400 applicants
Class starting Fall 07: 40%; 6650 applicants
Class starting Fall 08: 30%; 8000 applicants</p>
<p>On the bright side, the stats (GPA/SAT) of the accepted students did not change much despite the decrease in acceptance rate.</p>
<p>There are schools out there with deceptively high acceptance rates because the kids applying are self selected because the school has a rep that does not have a universal appeal. Tech schools often fall into that category. Also there are schools with surprisingly low acceptance rates given the mid range stats. Our state schools here fall into that situation. We have 40% rates at some schools because so many kids with lower range stats apply to them. So chance of acceptance are quite high if your stats are in the upper range of the spectrum, but not so great if you are in the mid range.</p>
<p>Here’s another example of a dramatic fall in acceptance rates, Pitzer College:</p>
<p>Class starting Fall 06: 37%
Class starting Fall 07: 26%
Class starting Fall 08: 22%</p>
<p>Most of the published stats (e.g., Princeton Review) are, at best, one year out of date. And in this market that one year can make a huge difference!</p>