Hmmm, let’s see if we can estimate.
Let’s say 35,000 apps. I am guessing that the 1800 students attending represents a yield of 20%, which is high for Tulane. That would mean they accepted 9000, so that is an acceptance rate of 26% (silly to put a decimal point there since my assumptions are so crude). That is pretty normal for Tulane these days.
What is interesting to just play with is if they could have assumed a yield of 20%, what was their target enrollment and therefore what acceptance rate would have hit it. If the target was 1600, which is a bigger target than it was just a couple of years ago, then they would have had to have accepted 8,000 or 23%.
Yale is going to be looking at something like this now, but in reverse. They are wanting to increase their class size by quite a bit, so their ultra-low acceptance rate of 6% or so is going to have to go up, unless they can really kick up the number of apps. Tulane obviously did not plan on increasing the class size this much, so depending on their new target presumably they will go the other way and be more selective this next cycle. Wonder of that is part of the reason to go ahead and pull the trigger on ED?