<p>I was referring now with the common app being used by almost all top schools, because I have not seen any recent numbers. If the increase was primarily due to domestic applicants, then there would have been similar increases across the board at all schools, especially those offering merit aid. The giant increases have been to internationally known schools which lead me to believe that a good percentage of the increase is due to foreign applicants.</p>
<p>When I am talking about international quotas, my point is that I do not believe that they are completely need blind, nor do I believe that they do not have quotas. When I was evaluating college applicants for an enrichment program, I knew immediately race and income by going through the application, even though the information was not disclosed on the forms that I was reading., ex, Tanika for first name, I do not even have to go down and read the clubs the person is involved with to figure race. The numbers are too precise every year, at all schools to believe that they are just targets. It is the same with financial aid, all files do not go to FA office as equal. They are separated into groups, tier A (you get best package because they absolutely want you), tier B, and tier C. All these colleges are private institutions they do anything they want and nobody can say or do anything. Watch how the lawsuit brought by the Asian student who sued Yale or Princeton is going to go down in flames.</p>
<p>My guess why the top universities seem more selective now than a few years ago is that the top students are feeling pressure to apply to more colleges now than they used to. (Which also gives colleges more opportunities to reject applicants.) When I applied in 2007, I was taught that 6 was a normal number of colleges to apply to and anything beyond 10 was just plain crazy. Nowadays I see plenty of students on CC applying to more than 10 colleges. </p>
<p>The Common App was already universally accepted by the top schools when I was applying to college in 2007, and had been for several years. I don’t see why it would have such a big impact on international admissions after 2008 but not before.</p>
<p>It seems unlikely to me that rising admission rates to the top universities since 2008 (when Peterson’s stopped publishing these data) have been primarily due to international students. If you do the math, you’ll notice that the number of international applicants would have to grow exponentially to have a significant impact on the total admission rate. I’ll take [url=<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/stats]MIT[/url”>Admissions statistics | MIT Admissions]MIT[/url</a>] as an example because they published their international admission statistics for 2011. MIT is also a good example because it’s arguably one of the most popular universities among international applicants; international students probably have a smaller impact on the admission rates at less prestigious universities of the same size.</p>
<p>International applicants: 3,930
International admits: 147
International admission rate: 3.7%</p>
<p>If MIT had 3,000 international applicants in 2007 with everything else the same, their total admission rate would have been 10.3%. If they had 2,000 international applicants, with everything else the same, their total admission rate would have been 10.9%. Think about it: even if the number of international applicants had doubled since 2007, the total admission rate would only change by 1.2%.</p>
<p>However, MIT’s actual admission rate in 2007 was 12.5%, 2.7% lower than in 2011. That indicates to me that most of the change is due to a rise in domestic applications. </p>
<p>(I am fairly confident that the lower acceptance rate in 2011 is NOT due to a higher yield rate because MIT actually accepted 200 more students in 2011 than in 2007, which points to a lower yield. I couldn’t find their actual yield rate for 2011 because the most recent Common Data Set is not online yet. Note that lower yield rates are consistent with the hypothesis that students are applying to more colleges on average.)</p>
<p>b@r!um, the numbers are very clear that the increase is due to international students, both due to an increase in the number of middle class population among developing countries and the deterioration of the global financial situation in many countries. I am not talking about selectivity because the same profile student has been accepted at each school, regardless whether the applicant pool is 10k or increased to 30k. I looked at the naviance stats in some top schools and their yield has remained the same. Also, domestic applicants have the extensive naviance stats for their school so they know where they have a high probability to be admitted since every student in their school has applied to a US school. Even if an international school uses naviance, the data is limited because not all students apply to the US schools. If the increase in applications were due to pressure to domestic applicants to apply to as many top schools as possible, then the increase would be spread across the board, yet we see Williams, the top LAC, and one that gets high HYPS crossadmits having a steady applicant pool of 6-7k for the last five years. Georgetown had a steady 15k until 2007-08 when they went online but used their own application and the pool went to 18k but shoot to 20k this year. It also could not be due to domestic financial reasons since again the increase would have been spread across the board as US applicants have access to federal aid and private lending. Nor could it be due to the commonapp as UChicago had 12,381 but went to 13,600 when it adopted it in 2007. Last year it had 21k applicants, this year 25k. Columbia and UMichigan just joined the commonapp this year, and neither MIT, UF, UCs, UT have joined. Would not pressured domestic students apply in equal numbers to other schools, especially top LAC? MIT does not accept the commonapp, has a STEM niche and it is popular for internationals primarily from India/Pakistan/Bangladesh and bottom first tier Chinese. Top Europeans prefer to attend their own universities for undergrad and come to the US for grad school. That’s why the applicant pool has remained ~18k.</p>
<p>most posters here will advise against taking on that kind of debt. Don’t you need to be able to demonstrate in some way that you can pay for the school? Do you have any safeties on your list?</p>