There is another thread listing top tier and selective schools that are more selective than many think. I thought it would be helpful to list some schools that aren’t top tier that have become increasingly competitive with their admissions recently. We often see students choosing schools as safeties that are more selective than anticipated . My example of a school which has gotten more selective and difficult to be admitted to is Clemson University. I’d love to hear what others think.
I know that Uni of Rochester had its most selective year ever this past cycle. Many high stats kid regard it as a safety. They are wising up to that and denying or WL’ing students.
I know that quite a few instate students with GPAs of less than 4.2 have been waitlisted or offered the Bridge to Clemson program. Students whose siblings were admitted directly to Clemson with similar GPAs and test scores just 3 years ago are being waitlisted or offered the Bridge to Clemson program.
I don’t consider Clemson’s ~53% admit rate surprisingly low.
~50% admitted is about what I’d expect from “middle tier”.
What I find more surprising is the high GPAs, or the HS class rank distributions, of students entering some universities. For example, for 2014-15, 96% of UC Irvine students ranked in their HS T10%, with an average GPA of 3.94. Those numbers are similar to the numbers for some private schools with much higher average test scores and much lower admission rates. For example, Princeton’s 2014-15 CDS reported that 94% of freshmen ranked in their HS top 10%, with an average GPA of 3.9 (for those who reported it). Princeton’s 2014 admit rate was 7.4%. UC Irvine’s was 37.4%.
@tk21769, that’s because of admissions philosophy. The UC’s heavily emphasize class rank and UC GPA in admissions.
If you look at UT-Austin, a huge percentage of its class would be top 10% as well. That’s because the vast majority of it’s class is filled with autoadmits for TX kids who are in the top 7% of their HS class.
How about U. Richmond, Northeastern, UMiami and Lafayette?
From the 2014 Freshman Class stats,
55% of admits were ranked in the top 10 of their class, 78% in the top 20 and 98% in the top 50. Middle 50% of SAT scores were 1190-1340 , ACT 27-31 and the mean weighted GPA was 4.23.
My D and I were disappointed to find out how selective U of Rochester is when I’d never even heard of it. We went to a little presentation with UoR and three other schools and she loved the UoR presentation and chat with the adcom. It may not be so reachy that she couldn’t get in, but merit aid (which we need) seems very unlikely. On the good side they wouldn’t think she’s using them as a safety!
Though my son got into one high reach (Penn), he and I definitely considered U Rochester, Northeastern, UCSD and UC Irvine to be reach schools on his list because of their selectivity. While he got into all of them, we certainly didn’t presume he would! We were very happily surprised.
His year, high school class of 2015, had U Rochester admitting 34% (less this year), Northeastern admitting 28%, UCSD at 30.2% (for California residents), and UCI at 33.4% (for California residents).
No doubt the admit rates are even lower this year.
Rochester is not a middle tier school.
What does “middle tier” mean? I assumed the OP meant schools that weren’t in say, the top 20 on things like USNews. I agree that the education isn’t “middle tier”. I was simply going by rankings and admit rate to determine tier.
I meant not top 20 or super selective
The average Rochester student is in the 95th percentile. It doesn’t get a whole lot of Hail Mary applications which is why the acceptance rate seems high.
To the OP…so you think anything below the top 20 is “middle tier”?
There are 3000 colleges in the country.
I would think at least the top 50 would be top tier.
I would agree @thumper1 but not by most CC standards.
@OnTheBubble if you look at admit rate of 57% it would not be considered a super selective school. It is not a reflection of the student that attends there. There are other schools with similar acceptance rates with stellar applicants.
@snoozn my D was offered great merit aid from U Roch and her stats were comfortably at about the 75th-80th percentile there.
I’m confused about which school’s stats we are discussing…
btw: U-Rochester has a 36% admit rate according to ipeds. Not single digits like some high falutin’ schools, but pretty darn selective to me. 
Rochester Institute of Tech has an admit rate of 57%…
The acceptance rate is not 57% it is 36%.
You can view it however you like but U of R is not a middle tier school, it is just sort of a wall flower. There are many schools with very low admit rates like UCLA that really don’t give an accurate picture of selectivity.
Notre Dame is a good example. The acceptance rate of 18% doesn’t really tell the whole story about how difficult it is to get in. How many varsity team captains with a 33ACT in the top 5% of their class do you know?
Be careful with this number, as it may well be the weighted UC GPA, as opposed to the UW GPA on a 4.0 scale.
For comparison, Cal posted ‘only’ a 3.87.