<p>The Williams number is basically correct: [The</a> Williams Record - Archives-Articles<a href=“Well,%20it%20looks%20like%20it%20actually%20should%20be%2020.2%,%20not%20the%2020.6%%20stated”>/url</a>. Williams had a substantial decline in the number of apps this year. </p>
<p>The acceptance rate alone doesn’t tell the whole story about a college. I have a FAQ about that. </p>
<p>SELECTIVITY </p>
<p>It’s NEVER a valid procedure to compare base acceptance rates alone to derive an inference about selectivity. That’s because different pools of applicants apply to different colleges, based on their own estimates of their chances. I’ll repost here an example I have posted earlier.</p>
<p>If Podunk Community College started a more vigorous marketing campaign, and encouraged many more applications than it has received before, it might find that the number of applications submitted was far above its capacity to enroll students, and thus find, even taking into account less than 100 percent yield of admitted students who actually enroll, that it could not admit all applicants. If Podunk has a 10 percent yield, a new first-year class size of 1,000, and receives 200,000 applications, it might issue a press release, after it admits 10,000 applicants, saying “Podunk admission rate down to 5 percent, lower than any Ivy League college.” But a thoughtful reader of that press release, even one who believes everything that Podunk reported, might still have genuine doubts that Podunk is more selective than Columbia, not to mention Harvard. Base acceptance rate is one interesting statistic about a college’s annual admission cycle, but it is not the sole competent evidence about which college is most selective. Scholars of the college admission process have some genuine disagreements about how to show which college is most “selective,” but NO ONE thinks that base acceptance rate is the last word on that subject.</p>
<p>WashU St. Louis, I’ve been all through their website and the only data they publish is 22,005 applications, and 1,426 <em>enrolled</em> for the class of 2012. They do not publish <em>admitted</em> that I can find anywhere. I suspect their admit rate is >20% or they would not go to such deliberate efforts to non-publish the figure on their website. They also appear not to publish a Common Data Set.</p>
<p>I don’t know what’s up with UCLA this year… Many of my friends got into Berkeley but not LA. If it’s the budget cut shouldn’t it be both schools?</p>
<p>It is not budget cuts, I think it is just the rediculous number of apps at those two schools, especially UCLA which has more. The UC’s trimmed 2300 student seats this year due to budget cuts. Berkeley and UCLA did not have to cut any spots and UCR and UCM added some spots. So the cuts came from UCSD, UCSB, UCI, UCSC, UCD and UCSF. The UC’s did however increase transfer seats. At our school, 8 kids (we have a small SR. class) got into UCLA but only 3 got into Berkeley this year. UCLA’s fall admission was slightly lower than Cal for the first time, both 21.something% however Cal has a spring admit program so their total acceptance was around 29%.</p>
<p>I am on waitlist for Hopkins, Northwestern and Dartmouth. Anyone heard for these colleges yet? Anyone have any idea if they will be pulling this year?</p>
<p>Tokenadult–you’re right about the selectivity. There are a lot of people applying to some less desirable colleges because they want them for safety schools, but really hope not to have to go there. It would be nice to know what percentage of the people accepted end up going to the colleges, but of course that would be complicated and beyond the scope of this thread.</p>
<p>Another very important thing that is missed in these numbers is the Early Decision Numbers. Alot of colleges had huge numbers for early decision like Cornell and UPenn. UPenn filled 41% of their Freshman Class early decision. That doesn’t leave many spaces for Regular Decision Applicants. UPenn early decision acceptance rate was 32%.
Cornell admitted almost 37% of Early Decision applicants and also filled 41% of the available freshman seats during early decision. To me its clear, if you are sure you can afford it and it is your first choice - apply early decision. Your odds are substantially better.</p>