Ok. Reading comprehension issues. They are saying that overall they admit 1 in 25
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Ah, thank you for posting.
The key word is âultimatelyâ. So it says nothing about the ED acceptance rate.
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Yes, that appears to just be saying they will ENROLL 1 in 25 for all cycles combined. Which is about rightâ577 enrolled last CDS, 14000 estimated applications, that is 4.12%.
So, not so informative. Oh well.
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Right, and it sounds like theyâre being very conservative accepting non-hooked kids in ED because theyâre expecting a ton of RD applicants.
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I had similar thoughts about the role that the Supreme Court decision played in ED this year. I donât know if Williams makes public how many QB applicants are admitted or if they include that number in their ED admissions stats (outside of the CDS). I wouldnât be surprised if they decided to admit fewer unhooked ED this year given the collegeâs commitment to increasing the diversity of its students.
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Will update when they post the Ed update. I would guess Monday.
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And the 14,000 isnât terribly different from last year. So while more kids may be choosing to apply ED, I donât think there is a surge in total apps.
And, yes, I think the SCOTUS ruling is driving the behavior in some schools accepting fewer ED.
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They actually got 15321 in the 2022-23 CDS. They might be lowballing for now, but I agree that is not indicating some big surge.
They matched 11 this year, compared to 15 last year. I found this surprising since matches are up 28% this year and many schools significantly increased the number of matches. For reference, Amherst, who I thing is the most publicly committed to increasing diversity, matched 22 (20 last year so not a big bump).
What I find most unexpected to Williamsâ strategy, is that they also eliminated any supplemental essays. So, without a diversity checkbox or a diversity question (which many schools added to work around the AA ruling) how are they ensuring diversity on campus? Will they only rely on WOW?
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At some point the surge in total applicants (at all very selective schools, not just Williams) is going to stabilize. We are headed for a dip in the number of college age students and there arenât going to be enough high stats kids for that number to continue to grow. Also, at what point (if ever) will there be a kind of backlash - kids not bothering to apply to schools where their chance of admission is so minuscule â say 2-3% (which seems to be where we are heading). Does it start to seem like you are throwing your money away unless you are hooked?
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I think the basic issue is at the most popular colleges there are well qualified unhooked applicants who have a low but still decent chance, and then a whole bunch of other people who really are not sufficiently well qualified, with nothing else to suggest an exception, and therefore who do not have a decent chance at all.
But people are thinking even if it seems like they are in the latter group, if they apply to 19 such colleges (plus one safety) they have a chance.
Possible antidotes include some colleges getting more transparent about who actually has a chance. Yale, Dartmouth, and others seem to have been moving in this direction. Weâll see if it helps.
Of course around here, we try to encourage people to find great, personalized matches, which logically would cut down on all the minimal-chance reaches. But I can see some people resisting such suggestions, so I think some blunt talk from the popular reach colleges might be necessary.
Unfortunately, I think there is no near cap on all this. A lot of people still donât apply to these colleges, but if they start . . . .
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Based on the results at S24âs school, Williams has clearly been able to identify minority candidates. Iâm not sure whether thatâs via self-disclosure in the personal statement or via comments in the counselor letter. Itâs early days yet, but the results at our school so far do hint at a possible change in strategy on the part of Williams - assuming that the average qualifications of the kids who applied this year are not different from prior years. The ED round appears to have been a bit of a disaster, and thatâs at a school that sent 5 percent of its class to Williams last year.
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I donât think they mean the ED pool. âUltimately we have room in our first year class for fewer than one in 25 candidates.â
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Sorry didnât see that was already posted above!
Can you explain this?
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Interesting. Where did you find the numbers? Iâm surprised that they donât take more. Haverford usually accepts around 20 QB for a class of about 350. (I recognize that Haverford has a higher acceptance rate than Amherst or Williams.)
Princeton accepts more than 100 QB in a class of 1360.
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But how can they do that? As folks on CC are aware, depending on what group you are in, standards are different. An unhooked suburban kid needs to have ultra high stats to even receive consideration at many of these schools (broadly speaking, not talking of Williams specifically) while a recruited athlete (in some cases) is going to have a lower academic bar. Colleges donât want to disclose this because how do you explain that no, you unhooked kid, have no chance with a 1400/3.7 but weâd be delighted to admit Johnny football/donor kid etc. with those same stats.
right, I was just quoting the Reddit kids, who seem to have left off an important word!
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Right â if they expect 14000 applications, well 4% of those would be 560 enrollees.
But that would assume 100% yield to get to their desired class size â which we know will not be the case.
Last year, their yield was 44.3% â 577 enrolled out of 1302 admits.
If that holds this year, they would have to admit 1264 applicants. So if there are 14000 apps, that would be an overall admit rate of 9% (ED and RD combined)
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