Why it's so hard to get into an under 15% acceptance rate school

Applying to College
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Many kids have just been deferred or denied by their top choice college. For the purposes of many of the kids on CC right about now, let’s assume that I’m talking about highly selective colleges with acceptance rates in the teens and lower.

TLDR: If you aren’t hooked and are lacking in something they need or want according to section C7 of their CDS and the college’s institutional needs, your odds of getting in are even lower than you think, probably well below the published acceptance rate, except for maybe the very most exceptional students. Exceptional isn’t the same as average excellent.

My TLDR advice: Assume you are unlikely to get in and concentrate on your other applications.

Let’s use Cornell as an example, because it is allegedly the “easy” or “lower” Ivy (which always amuses me.)
DISCLAIMER: I am not a numbers person at all, so these numbers might be off. Feel free to add or correct.

Class of 2022 (using CDS '18-19 and data from Ivy Coach)

  1. Cornell received 6,319 ED apps. Of those, they admitted 1533 and filled nearly 47% of the class. The remaining 53% will be duking it out from a much bigger applicant pool.
  2. Many of the ED apps were likely recruited athletes, legacies, or other hooked students.
  3. About 1030 of the other ED applicants were deferred to RD. The rest were denied
  4. Of deferred applicants, around 15% of those might have been accepted in the RD round. (154 applicants)
  5. In the RD round, Cornell received 45,165 apps. Of those, they accepted 4053. That’s just under a 9% acceptance rate RD.
  6. 6683 students were offered Waitlist. 164 were accepted from that.

Deferrals are offered to students who they feel could succeed at Cornell, but they want to wait and see if “better” applicants apply RD. (What makes a “better" applicant is the $64,000 question.) The deferred app is put into the RD pool where it’s read again, but of course, the deferred applicant is now competing against tens of thousands, as opposed to a few thousand. A deferred app doesn’t have any advantage over an RD app.

The odds of acceptance from the waitlist are even lower, at just above 2%. Waitlists are often considered a polite rejection, though of course, it works out for some.

Let’s look at who matriculated to Cornell in the Class of 2022. (Total 3325.)

  1. First gen students totaled 455.
  2. Nearly 17% were related to alumni= 558.
  3. 6% were recruited athletes= 199
  4. 10% of the class are international students= 332

That’s 1534 of the 3325 who matriculated. That leaves us with 1791 who are possibly unhooked applicants, including kids who are over-represented. As we know, over represented kids might be Caucasian or Asian and from suburban and/or affluent areas around the country, but most commonly the East Coast. We can reduce 1791 even further if we take out numbers of students who identify as people of color.

33% of accepted applicants (not including Asians) self-identified as students of color=884. Now, of course, there could be overlap with the above first gen, alumni, athletes, and international students. But if you aren’t URM, your odds of getting in are even lower.

Consider section C7 of the CDS, which lists what they consider when they assess your app. If the applicant isn’t hitting the metric for anything Cornell considers “Very Important”, “Important”, or “Considered,” your application is weakened, unless it’s offset by something they need or want (Institutional Needs and/or hooks.) For example, if you have a “low” standardized test score, your app is weakened. Some kids do have low test scores, but it is very possible that the student with a low score is hooked in some way they need or want.

This is a VERY long-winded explanation of why it’s so hard to get in. If you are deferred or waitlisted, it’s in your best interest to be realistic and do a great job with your other applications, rather than hoping for a miracle. Good luck to you all!

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I think you are spot on Linda. Excellent post!

Students should look at the profiles for the incoming class and how the university “markets” that information .

To add more backing to Linda’s post. Look at the headline from the Cornell paper about the rise in diversity rate:

https://cornellsun.com/2019/03/28/cornell-class-of-2023-sees-increased-diversity-rate-in-admitted-students-higher-acceptance-rate/

This is also why students and parents shouldn’t take college admission personally. Way too many factors that one can not change.

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Very good and helpful post, as a parent of a deferred kid, I agree with your analysis.
Just wish selective colleges don’t defer so many applicants. Hope is not a plan…

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Also, of the “unhooked” applicants, many of those who are admitted came from elite prep schools with dedicated knowledgeable college counseling staffs who often have connections to the most selective colleges. Such an advantage helps in matching students to the colleges, helping the student “self-package” to impress the target college’s admissions readers, getting better than typical recommendations, and having recommenders who are taken more seriously by the colleges. It is not impossible for a student without such advantages to get admitted, but the odds are not as good.

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Good post. A few points.

I think deferred ED candidates have higher acceptance rates than RD applicants, probably because they applied ED and know they are likely to attend if accepted in RD (yield) and probably are really strong candidates in the first place and the reason for the deferment and not rejected in the ED round.

For example, Duke defers 20% of ED applicants and 10% will be accepted in RD. The regular decision acceptance rate for the general pool is around 5%.

Lastly, I used to be very skeptical about the ED acceptance rates for average excellent students from public HS applying to top colleges but with seeing the success my D20 and her close unhooked friends had these past two weeks at colleges like Rice, Northwestern, and Duke gives hope that ED is an advantage even for unhooked students.

A few things these public school kids had in common were 4.0s, 34/35 ACT, good ECs, top 5-10% of HS class, and were “packaged” with the help of very good and well informed private college counselors.

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I wouldn’t count international students as hooked. Instead I’d expect the international pool to be more selective than the domestic pool, with a lower admit rate. This is especially true among international students who require FA. So I’d expect the overall admit rate for domestic applicants to be higher than the overall admit rate for the college.

One additional large group that might be considered hooked/tipped for some of the larger Cornell schools is in state residents. 34% of enrolling students in the class of 2023 were in state, and in state students have an advantage at some of the largest Cornell schools (reference at https://cornellsun.com/2018/11/06/a-look-inside-how-cornell-accepts-its-students/ ).

Women could also be considered a hooked group for the engineering school. In the reference year, the admit rate for women was 18% vs 6% for men. This large difference in admit rate resulted in a ~50%/~50% gender balance for the full undergraduate population of the engineering school.

However, overall admit rate by hook/subgroup says little about an individual applicant’s chances. An individual’s chances compared to overall admit rate depend on how the individual compares to overall applicant pool, as well as to which sub college/field he/she is applying to. A large portion of applicants have a effectively 0% chance of admission – essentially wasting their time and application fee; and some applicants have an excellent chance of admission, including some unhooked applicants. Given the large number of non-stat criteria, it’s not always obvious what whether an individual applicant has a good/bad chance of admission, but being deferred is valuable feedback that can make an applicant’s chances of admission more clear. Unless something changes that makes the application much stronger, it’s a good idea to move on and not get attached.

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Oh, I’m sorry. But you’re looking at blind odds, not what makes candidates desirable. Princeton, eg, says ECs are Very Important. Now tell me what’s a good EC.

We know geo diversity can make the final choice difference among candidates. But it’s only Considered. Think so?

The C7 factors are generalized. Meant to be what any college can fill out, for comparison. Not specific to C or P. Not to represent a full ‘what we look for.’

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Average excellent refers to your hs record. Not necessarily your desirability at that college. Not at all. You aren’t applying to another or better hs.

Reviewers do not necessarily know who in the RD pool was deferred. So forget this being some desperation for yield. And if more deferred kids are admitted RD, don’t forget they already presented an app worthy of re-reading.

If an unhooked kid gets in ED, it’s about his app. Of course it’s possible. But not without what that college wants to see. Dont reduce this to just odds. In fact, that takes any control away from your kids.

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Thanks all. Valid points from everyone that shed more light.

@socaldad2002 , I think you’re right that many ED applicants are already strong. Plenty of average excellent kids DO get in. My point is that the odds are probably lower than the overall acceptance rate, by the time you exclude all the hooked applicants.

@Data10 , no, I don’t consider international students as hooked. The idea is simply to say that we can expect that probably around 10% of all spots will go to international students in a given year, meaning a little less room for domestic applicants.

@lookingforward , of course, you’re right. A student isn’t getting in if they don’t demonstrate that they “get” what the college wants. The purpose of this post is to help a kid to understand better all the factors beyond their control that might make it so hard to get in. It helps to look at what’s considered in the CDS. It’s the closest they can get to understanding what might be going on in the minds of the AdComs without actually sitting in on a committee. And of course, their app must show that they understand what the college is looking for, apart from grades, scores, race, geographic diversity, and so forth.

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I don’t think general comments that schools make about what they want are very helpful. “Good ECs”, an example. Most all Princeton applicants have excelled ECs, IMO, and Ive known some kids without much in the way of ECs gain admissions by

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Or if they get lucky and happen to hit it without knowing beforehand that that is what the college wants. Or if they were coached and packaged well by the knowledgeable and well connected college counselors at their prep school.

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So your are telling me that the regional adcoms don’t know that a kid was deferred from ED and now is in the RD pool? That’s really hard to believe that they don’t track this data and don’t have any notes, don’t remember this person etc from the ED round.

Please explain your theory.

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I agree 100% with Lindagaf that the best choice after a deferral is to get excited about some other options. But I would not want any current high school juniors to read this thread and determine that it is not “worth it” to apply early decision… because Early Decision is one of the best strategic choices an applicant can make.

The experience of our family and friends has been that Early Decision is the best hope for getting into a top college.

Again this year, two close family friends from over-represented states and demographics, from public high schools, who were completely “unhooked,” got into their first choice colleges through Early Decision. For one of the two, their SAT scores even were lower than the latest published median for the college. (Both of these colleges have acceptance rates in the low 20’s, not below 15%, though.)

This year I also have a work colleague whose son got in unhooked to a top college that admits under 15%.

Each year recently, we have celebrated the acceptance of friends to their ED choices in December. Regular decision in April is more of a mix; some people land at one of their top choices, but others manage initial disappointment before getting excited about going to a low match or safety. Most of the people I know personally (not through College Confidential) who are attending top colleges applied there early decision.

Early decision admission to a top college is hard for almost anyone, and yes, even more so for an unhooked applicant. But regular decision is even harder.

Moral of the story? If the net price calculator suggests it will be affordable, one can apply ED to a realistic top choice as a wise strategic move. But one also should be prepared with match and safety colleges that will be good “fits” if that’s where one ends up going. Be sure to demonstrate interest at those matches.

I also strongly recommend simultaneously applying early action to a safer choice. Getting into another college early action removes some of the anxiety from December to April if one is deferred or rejected from the early decision choice.

And two thoughts of hope to deferred ED applicants:

  1. There are stories on this site each year of students who were deferred from one college in December only to be admitted RD (in one case I know of, they even were admitted early write!) to a college that is a fully equal top rival of the college from which they were deferred.
  2. Wherever you end up going to college, even if it is not one of your top choices, if you go in with a good attitude, almost surely you will end up loving your college and being glad you did not go anywhere else! So hold your head high, finish those applications to colleges you like at a range of admissions difficulties… and get ready to be really excited to go to your new college next September!
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Based on my D20 and her classmates results, there seems to be a distinct difference between ED and SCEA or EA- even when considering the relatively low acceptance rates. Our school has seen some success with schools with ED and exactly zero with SCEA. I realize it’s anectdotal - but looking at my S21, if he was on the fence between two schools and one had ED, I’d absolutely encourage him to go that route.

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@Lindagaf thanks, that comment to me makes sense.
Cpt, they don’t say “good ECs.” They describe their community, students, and aspects of their structure, and one can understand. (Assuming one’s looking.) Sometimes, a more directed “What We Look For.” And no, most applicants don’t necessarily have great ECs. Not at all. They may seem so, in the hs context. There’s a subset of kids who nail the range, responsibilities, stretch, etc, relevant to the top colleges.

Nor do I put so much faith in the privileges one so often turns to, on CC. That pricey counselor can- and does- get it wrong. The best ones, imo, are not forming kids into finalists for some dream college. The try to point them in the right directions, first.

@socaldad2002, I purposely chose the word “reviewers,” not, “your regional AO.” Multiple readers, once past first cut. The point is to read fresh. An AO may remember. But many inputs add to impressions. Or not.

See, @TheGreyKing, so many put sole emphasis on the fact of ED. Your friends can take credit for more than that, with their apps. They deserve credit for that, no matter whether a stat is a little lower. Posters tend to view “realistic” in terms of stats first, a sort of vicious cycle.

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I think your observation is spot on. ED almost always helps the applicant even if not hooked. Also, the ED applications seemed to be were down 10-15% this year, having peaked last year. I know Duke had 500 less applicants in ED this year.

Additionally, most of the kids I know who applied to Tulane ED were accepted, very few accepted EA, including very high stat kids.

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Clearly applying ED makes a difference, and I also don’t want to discourage people. I think we would all agree that ED/SCEA or even EA is only a true advantage IF the applicant has what the college is looking for already, in terms of what they prioritize in section C7, their own institutional needs and, of course, fit.

Maybe it’s easier to say if you DON’T have what they are looking for, ED isn’t an advantage.

I neglected to mention fit in my original post, and I should have. It’s the thing that’s “unquantifiable.” You need to “get” what the college is looking for, or you are unlikely to get in. These super selective schools are so competitive and they turn away MANY highly qualified students. You’re less likely to be turned down if you can show them how you’re a good fit for them.

I also know students who have been deferred and got in RD, so it can happen. The point is that it’s unlikely. Same with Waitlist, which is even more unlikely. But some of you probably know that my own D got off two waitlists, so again, it can happen.

If you’re a student who’s read this far, believe me, that’s not the usual outcome. My D deposited and was happy about the school she planned to attend and assumed she wouldn’t get off WL. In fact, she nearly didn’t end up where she is now (a very selective LAC.) In her case, depositing at the WL school ended up being the right choice, but she gave it a lot of thought. And she still feels she would have been happy too at the original school.

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Great post. Just one small quibble with the numbers in OP’s lead in post, rather than looking at the remaining matriculated student number of 1,791, the remaining spots is the difference between 4,053 RD plus 1,533 ED = 5,586 total acceptances. That less the 1,534 students of the 4 identified categories leaves 4,052 spots.

If we were to try to isolate what the Deferred kids are up against, they are fighting for 4,053 spots in a field of 46,195 applicants (RD + Deferred). It’s interesting that the admit rate for Cornell Deferred is so much higher than the overall RD rate. This makes sense since they rejected over 59% of the ED applicants, which implies that the Deferred pool is relatively strong. Compare that against Harvard or other schools that reject only 10%± in the early round. So, to me, if you were deferred from Cornell or another school that had a relatively high ED/EA reject rate (like Stanford), it should give you some confidence in the strength of your app. The odds of getting in the deferred school or similar reaches is still a “reach”, but there is no reason to make major adjustments in your suite of targeted schools. On the other hand, if you were rejected by a low reject rate school like Harvard, you might want to reassess the strength of your app and the schools you should be targeting in the RD round and if you were also a high stat’s (test scores and GPA) applicant, I would take another look at your essays and possibly the LoR’s for some kind of defect.

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So much else that matters is missing from C7. The quality of one’s thinking. Perspective and maturity (versus sheltered.) More.

Just remember C7 is very incomplete. And because it’s not policed, can be inaccurate.

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What I don’t understand is why Princeton defer few SCEA applicants to RD then to waitlist before finally rejecting.

If you don’t want them then make up your mind. Why give hope and keep them hanging in limbo?

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