<p>The</a> Daily Northwestern : Northwestern acceptance rate drops to all-time low of 13.9 percent</p>
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Northwestern acceptance rate drops to all-time low of 13.9 percent
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<p>If this trend continues, we will have under 10% acceptance rate within the next five years or so.</p>
<p>Well this post is a major confidence boost. (:</p>
<p>Acceptance rates are getting smaller and smaller. Really makes me wonder how different the game will be for the next waves of applicants.</p>
<p>NorthwesternDad,</p>
<p>I doubt it.</p>
<p>I think three drivers have been behind the surge for many schools: 1) the size of the HS senior class, 2) the strategy to cast wider net by the applicants, and 3) marketing by the schools. Well, the first one already peaked last year; the second one is nothing new these days. The third one also seems to stay flat relatively for most schools. That’s why the application pools have expanded only slightly (NU is an example), stayed flat, or even shrunk for many schools this year.</p>
<p>The first two are out of NU control. Unless NU improve the marketing and resources another notch or two (like UChicago) for the undergrad admission, I think the admission rate is going to level off or even increase in the next few years.</p>
<p>@Sam Lee. point well taken. Of late, a sizeable increase in numbers is coming from international students, which was not the case a few years ago. Like anything, the applicant pool will taper off at some point. Given the superb marketing done by the next door neighbor, it will be a surprise if NU does not divert more resources towards this.</p>
<p>There are reasons why many schools haven’t done what the next door neighbor have done. It could be just a matter of different sets of priorities. But I also think there are some or many who question the practice.</p>
<p>I think a fourth factor is Yield, true? If I’m not mistaken NU’s yield has been steadily increasing, which indicates not only growing awareness of Northwestern (demonstrated by the increased number of applicants) but also increasing preference for the school (hence the need to admit fewer students to achieve the desired class size).</p>
<p>It’s an amazing school, and the word is spreading.</p>
<p>Any word on the individual rates for ED and RD?</p>
<p>There were 861 admitted in ED and 4555 in total which means 3694 admitted in RD.</p>
<p>I do wonder what NU is doing to improve yield. I thought the whole interest as a strong requirement will result in higher yield but they have not reduced the admitted number over a couple of years.</p>
<p>NU will accept MORE ED students next year compared to this year’s at 43%. </p>
<p>That will give NU a higher yield and will also make it even that much more competitive to get an acceptance as an RD applicant. But it will also help boost the rankings on USNWR to possibly a Top Ten spot.</p>
<p>Having 50% of the class filled with ED admits is not unreasonable in my opinion, and Northwestern should not hesitate to make this their target in the coming years. Lower-SES kids with slightly below average stats get in if they apply ED, along with their high-stats, higher-income counterparts. The common denominator is that they have Northwestern as their first choice, and I believe that makes a huge difference in making the campus environment vibrant and happy. Why not prioritize students who have Northwestern as their clear first choice?</p>
<p>Wildcatalum and SamLee:</p>
<p>The changing view on ED has been fascinating. When the plan first kicked off in the 90s, it was highly controversial because it limited student choice quite severely. Additionally, studies indicated that ED provides an advantage, generally, to wealthy applicants who are savvy enough (and have the tools/capabilities necessary) to use this program. </p>
<p>Personally, while many folks on this board laud ED, I think it’s overly restrictive. It’s great for the universities, but not great for the applicants. Additionally, when schools take higher and higher percentages of the class ED, it squeezes out potential RD accepts who simply didn’t have the resources to make such a choice and use ED.</p>
<p>SamLee, you mentioned that UChicago’s approach (lots of mass marketing) has sometimes been viewed in a negative light. I should preface my comments by saying I’m a loyal UChicago alum, and I also think NU is a great school. Personally, it’s a little silly to determine which approach - sustained marketing or heavy use of ED - is more “respectable”. The fact of the matter is, all schools want an ultra-low accept rate and a high yield. Schools decide on varying approaches for many reasons, but I don’t think one approach is “more respectable” than another. </p>
<p>The fact of the matter is, if NU could increase marketing and outreach, and also zoom up into the top 5 or 10 of the rankings, it’d do so in a heartbeat. I don’t think it’s a sense of honor or civility that’s holding it back. Rather, increased marketing and admissions expansion is very pricey. Of late, UChicago’s lavished a LOT of resources into it’s admissions department. Make no mistake, UChicago’s admissions dean, James Nondorf, is very well compensated. The admissions office is also huge. The marketing budget is massive.</p>
<p>I imagine that NU, like UChicago, is trying to make the best decisions with the resources available, but both schools have very much the same goals in mind. Admissions is a bit of a cutthroat game. Both mass marketing and ED policies are quite self-serving for an institution, but universities don’t hesitate to use these measures. I imagine, for example, that UChicago would use ED, but for the general desire now to spread the word about the school - which means, as is a classic phrase in advertising: marketing, marketing, marketing. NU would love the chance to spread the word about it’s own offerings too, if that was more of a possibility. </p>
<p>Again, the end goals are the same, and I imagine more than a few admissions officials look upon Nondorf and his office with admiration, because he’s been given a king’s ransom to make it all happen and drop the accept rate into the single digits. If other schools were in a position to do the same, they probably would.</p>
<p>Cue7,</p>
<p>NU President said he’d like to have expand ED so more students on campus have NU as their first choice, which would create a more vibrant campus and better sense of community. He never mentioned anything about using it to get higher yield or lower rate. Obviously, just because he never mentioned it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t the case. But if NU had no ED and by using the RD yield, the admission rate would have been 19.5%. The real rate would be lower than that since the RD yield is assumed for even the ones that applied ED. Let’s just use 17%, which I think is fair as it’s kinda near the middle but closer to 19.5%, then we are talking about only 3 percentage-point difference between using ED+RD and using RD only. That doesn’t seem all that effective as a tool and therefore I doubt that’s really the primary motivation behind ED. </p>
<p>Many people seem to have this misconception that ED would make a huge impact on yield. I guess it’s not intuitive but they will find the opposite if they actually sit down and do the math. Then there are many people who do not recognize that EA may have higher impact to the yield than ED. While EA doesn’t give 100% yield, the yield is still definitely higher than RD and it’s the best of both world and attracts a lot more applicants than ED.</p>
<p>Sam Lee,</p>
<p>Good points - I’m not sure how much ED impacts accept rate and yield. My suspicion is that it impacts accept rate pretty marginally (maybe a few percentage points) and it impacts yield a bit more significantly (perhaps offers, say, a 5% boost or so). In the ultra-competitive admissions game, however, a difference of a few percentage points can be meaningful. I’d be surprised if UChicago’s administrators aren’t now very happy that their accept rate is closer to Princeton or Stanford’s than it is to NU’s or Cornell’s. Similarly, I imagine the accept rate - sad as it may be - provides easy signalling to the outside world (“look at us! We only accept 8% of applicants!”). Moreover, I think NU’s administrators are quite happy that the 13.9% accept rate keeps the school in striking distance of Duke and Penn, and the office would be deflated if the rate went from, say, 14% to 18% because of a change in policy. These percentage points make a difference in this game, and schools are pretty cognizant of who they want their peers to be. </p>
<p>An additional note about ED: I imagine it significantly decreases labor and costs in an admissions office. If NU dismissed ED, it’s conceivable that it’s applications would increase by ~20%, and the yield would be more of an open question. This would force an admissions office to read more applications and focus more of their energy in wooing accepted students. That’s a costly and time-consuming game. ED is much neater: all those who are accepted attend.</p>
<p>My larger issue here, though, is to look at it from the applicant’s angle rather than the college’s angle. I still don’t think limiting choice for those (the students) who already may lack the ability to make sound decisions is a good move. I strongly prefer a no-strings attached EA policy (or, really, I wish colleges just had one, equal round of admissions - that would be the best situation for applicants). </p>
<p>Consequently, I don’t draw much difference between heavy marketing or heavy use of ED. They both serve the school’s purpose very well, but don’t do much for applicants.</p>
<p>I agree that many schools (including NU) would be very pleased if they have the kind of numbers UChicago has but I am not sure that they have “the same goals in mind”. It’s apparent that they don’t have the same priorities. NU has a bit higher endowment yet spends a lot less on the admission department; schools may share similar list of numerous goals but they don’t put the same weight to each of those goals if they don’t allocate their resources similarly.</p>
<p>We are members on CC and we tend to see college admission and college ranking as a huge deal to all the schools. But presidents also have graduate schools, med/law/biz schools, schools for continuing education, etc. to worry about. In the whole scheme of things, college ranking/admission may be a big deal for some school presidents but may not be among the most important for others. Some may think it’s important enough to maintain the current position but not worth extra spending to try to climb just few more spots (with no guarantee that it would actually work).</p>
<p>Sam Lee - that’s a very good point. I think all schools have the same goals in mind, but the levels of priority and possibility of resources expended vary tremendously. I think we’re both on the same page about this - virtually all the top schools, UChicago, Columbia, NU, Cornell, Duke, etc. etc. that are not at the very tippy top want to get there. The possibility of expending the resources necessary to do this, however, varies significantly.</p>
<p>Of late, primarily lead by a very ambitious college dean (Dean Boyer), UChicago has focused heavily on its college. This includes not just heavy investment in the admissions dept, but also big donations ($100M) to financial aid, lots of investment in the physical plant, etc. </p>
<p>If you asked President Schapiro if he’d like NU to be in the top 5 or top 10, surely he’d like that. As you astutely suggest, though, schools have limited resources and varying priorities. Based on structure, UChicago has just one college, whereas NU’s undergrad divisions are a bunch of moving parts. It’s then much easier for UChicago to focus on fewer goals/priorities than NU. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, each school is trying to be the best it can be, but this plays out in various ways. At the same time, I think it’s important to realize that schools make all sorts of self-serving decisions (e.g. ED or marketing), and again, I’m not sure it’s worth parsing what approaches are more or less honorable than others. The entire situation, I think, is getting out of control.</p>
<p>12.3% acceptance for RD, 32.5% acceptance rate ED, if I’m doing my math correctly and my sources are correct. So the acceptance rate only goes up 1.6% from RD to combined. </p>
<p>[The</a> Daily Northwestern : Northwestern admits largest, most diverse early decision applicants](<a href=“http://dailynorthwestern.com/2012/12/18/campus/northwestern-admits-largest-most-diverse-early-decision-applicants/]The”>http://dailynorthwestern.com/2012/12/18/campus/northwestern-admits-largest-most-diverse-early-decision-applicants/)
[The</a> Daily Northwestern : Northwestern acceptance rate drops to all-time low of 13.9 percent](<a href=“http://dailynorthwestern.com/2013/03/23/top-stories/2017-nu-admits-record-low-13-9-percent-of-freshman-for-class-of-2017/]The”>Northwestern acceptance rate drops to all-time low of 13.9 percent)</p>
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I disagree. What ED does is puts some prospective applicants off to the RD round if they’re not ready to commit, but are still interested in the school. With EA, any interested applicant can apply EA or RD, but the total app count is of negligible difference. So, all ED does is shift potential EA applicants to the RD round; maybe marginally fewer apps total, but not that many, and it’s more than offset by the corresponding increase in yield.</p>
<p>NU already has more apps than UChicago. The main things keeping it from entering a single digit acceptance rate are yield and class size. </p>
<p>Cue, you have a lot more patience than most when it comes to people attacking UChicago’s marketing practices. I’m impressed, because that is what Sam Lee is doing right now, albeit in a subtler, more passive aggressive way than most. What many people fail to realize is that their school already did the whole marketing thing, and that UChicago is simply catching up to the trend started by schools like NU, Duke, and Penn. How do you think those schools got their app counts past 30,000 in the first place? But then suddenly when UChicago catches up – not even surpasses, just catches up – to the number of apps those schools get, something shady must have been involved.</p>
<p>Invasion:</p>
<p>Thanks for the post. Sam Lee’s possible intimations aside (I try to think the best of posters), and to answer his inquiries directly, what UChicago has done is very difficult, and they also benefit from a particularly unique set of logistical/situational factors. </p>
<p>Keep in mind, lots of other schools have, in the past, marketed very heavily (including Wash U, Penn, Duke, Vanderbilt, Tufts, and, lest people forget, NU in the mid-90s). UChicago, however, has benefited from a “perfect storm” of circumstances: a preeminent academic reputation, a highly respected, veteran college dean (boyer) focused on improving the College, strong ties to the white house with the Obama connection, the hiring of an innovative new admissions dean (Nondorf), and, especially very recently, extremely strong national rankings. To put it bluntly, UChicago had a wonderful “product” and then found the right man (Nondorf) to raise awareness about this great product. </p>
<p>This combination of factors allowed UChicago to engage in a three-pronged method of improvement: a.) increasing applications and lowering accept rate; b.) significantly increasing yield (to nearly 50%); and c.) significantly improving the quality of incoming classes at a rate that outpaces most of its peers.</p>
<p>It’s a little dismissive and myopic when people say that all UChicago does is “market a lot.” To an individual applicant receiving lots of e-mails, that may be what it looks like. On the macro level though, especially to achieve the three factors described above, the process is pretty sophisticated and pretty impressive. </p>
<p>Overall, while some like Sam Lee may (directly or not) deride UChicago’s approach, frankly, the approach really impresses me, and it’s both complicated and impactful. I think it’s about more than just sending out lots of brochures to everyone and then sitting back and watching apps roll in and yield increase. Further, as other posters have mentioned, Nondorf is becoming a hot, hot commodity in the admissions world. Frankly, if he decided he really wanted the Northwestern job (or the deanship post at most other top schools), NU would probably work very hard to find a place for him. This guy is sort of a rock star, and there are few who enjoy the three-pronged achievements described above at the sheer pace that Nondorf does.</p>