In total, 47,779 prospective students applied in the regular decision cycle. The total pool for regular decision included an additional 1,285 deferred students, or 18 percent of the 7,140 early applicants. The News calculated that the regular decision acceptance rate, when accounting for deferred students in the pool, was about 2.9 percent — a decrease from last year’s regular decision acceptance rate of 3.65 percent.
In total, 2,328 students were admitted to the class of 2030 out of a pool of 54,919 applicants across early, regular and Questbridge admissions. The overall acceptance rate was 4.2 percent, a decrease from last year’s 4.59 percent rate.
https://yaledailynews.com/articles/regular-admit-rate-dips-to-3-15-percent-in-year-with-second-largest-pool
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For all the chatter in certain circles, it does not appear these sorts of colleges are becoming less popular places to apply.
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The demographic trends (fewer and fewer high school kids over time) would lead you to believe that the supply-demand imbalance in college admissions should be getting better.
However it appears to be offset by the “flight to quality” concerns whereby the top schools (however you define that) are getting more applications! For example, Yale got 9.4% more applicants this year even as the number of high school seniors declined.
And Yale’s 2.9% regular decision admission rate is kinda insane. “The News calculated that the regular decision acceptance rate, when accounting for deferred students in the pool, was about 2.9 percent — a decrease from last year’s regular decision acceptance rate of 3.65 percent.”
Here is a WSJ article (unlocked) on a possible reason for the “flight to quality”: https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/elite-colleges-are-back-at-the-top-of-the-list-for-company-recruiters-ad9526ac?st=Pn8dK9&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Indeed. I note this is continuing a very long-standing trend, which seemed to accelerate around the beginning of this century, and then accelerate even further following COVID.
One empirically observable way of putting it is more students are choosing to attend college outside of their locality, state, and region. So, the more “national” colleges are often experiencing increasing demand. Meanwhile, more local/state/regional-focused colleges and systems are often experiencing decreasing demand. This is sometimes called a “nationalization” effect.
I note something like a flagship public could be going either way depending on its state demographics and/or its OOS popularity. In fact, some flagship-level publics seem to be increasing their OOS popularity and sort of “leveling up” in terms of “national” standing.
There have been some articles where people make a leap that if some flagship-level publics are leveling up nationally, this must necessarily be coming at the net cost of other “national” publics or privates. But with this ongoing “nationalization” trend, it isn’t a zero-sum game. And again it is easily observed the main net losses are among the local/state/regional college systems, to the net gain of the “national” college system.
That chatter was always made of hollow threats. Show me a parent who claims they would never allow their child to attend a woke, elitist Ivy League college, and I’ll show you a parent who is desperate to get their child into one.
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