30,000+ apps for Stanford, Duke, Penn, Northwestern

Parents Forum
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<p>Stanford: 36,744
Stanford</a> Sets Record With Almost 37,000 Freshman Applications</p>

<p>Duke: 31,565
Duke</a> sees 6 percent spike in applications | The Chronicle</p>

<p>Penn: 31,127
The</a> Daily Pennsylvanian :: Applications to Penn drop by nearly 2 percent</p>

<p>Northwestern: 31,991
Applications</a> Hit New High : Northwestern University Newscenter</p>

<p>Scary!!!</p>

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<p>My DH attended a lunch for a businessman’s charitable organization the other day. One of the guest speakers was someone in the TCU administration who said that TCU had received 20,000 applications for fall 2012 for their 1700 spots in the freshman class. Now that was surprising, and I suspect that while their massive building/renovations of the last decade might be a factor, I can’t help but wonder what effect the TCU football success had on recent increases in applications.</p>

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<p>Yeah, this is one of those threads I won’t share with my daughter…she applied to 2 of these schools and is freaking out enough as it is =0)</p>

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<p>So why do we think Penn’s numbers dropped?</p>

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<p>^^^^Surely it’s not a mistaken association with another Pennsylvania school experiencing some PR problems?</p>

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<p>Herd mentality fueled by fear … at its best.</p>

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<p>Why to bescared? I believe that there are plenty of other fine UG’s in the USA. And not all who are accepted into these 4. will choose to attend, they will open doors to others.<br>
It is just like applications to Med. School. Yes, there are about 5000 of application for 170 spots at each Med. school, but many are applying to 15 - 20 schools. This is really scary situation since kids have already invested 4 years at UG, tons of money and other resources and they get accepted at about 40%. I bet rate of acceptance to UG’s is not that low, higher than 40%. Most people who have applied to 4 in OP, will be going to some UG. Nothing to worry about, come down, enjoy the ride.</p>

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<p>Yup, and they’ve all become LESS selective as a result. It is less rather than more likely that a student who could benefit from what that institution specifically (in contrast with others) will get accepted and will attend will go down rather than up in the sea of applications.</p>

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<p>It’s by 2%! that’s meaningless imo. Do I feel richer if I have $1.02 than $1.00?</p>

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<p>Has any study mentioned the total number of students applying to college this year relative to past years? I have seen statistics mentioning that the number of foreign applicants is way up, but I don’t think those applicants account for a significant portion of the increases seen at each campus. Are more high school students applying to college because of the bad job market, or is the increase due to each student applying to more campuses? If it’s the latter, I guess we can expect more waitlists since campuses will have a tough time calculating their yield.</p>

<p>This is old, but indicates the total number of students applying has actually gone down since 2009:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nacacnet.org/AboutNACAC/PressRoom/2009/Pages/09soca.aspx[/url]”>http://www.nacacnet.org/AboutNACAC/PressRoom/2009/Pages/09soca.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>So the hysteria over number of applications should not be scary to anyone but the adcoms who have to wade through the mess their institution’s marketing department has created for them.</p>

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<p>There are literally hundreds of good colleges in this country begging for warm bodies (who can pay the bill). Their professors have degrees from the same graduate schools as the more “selective” ones.</p>

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<p>At Duke, the majority of the increase was domestic students.</p>

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<p>momsquad: The number of US high school graduates is declining (very slightly, and the trend will reverse in a couple of years). But, at least until recently, the percentage of high school graduates applying to college was increasing steadily, especially among subsets (e.g., Hispanic students) where the absolute number was still growing, too. So there is really no evidence that the number of domestic students applying to colleges has declined at all.</p>

<p>That said, it’s not increasing by anything resembling the increases seen by elite colleges in recent years. That’s attributable to (1) a flight to quality, (2) an increase in the number of applications per student among students applying to selective colleges, (3) more widespread recognition that with financial aid elite private institutions may be more affordable for many students than public universities, and (4) increases in foreign applicants, which are NOT insignificant for the colleges mentioned in this thread and their peers. It’s hard to find good numbers anywhere, but I remember MITChris saying in some thread recently that international students accounted for almost all of MIT’s application volume increase over the past few years. And of course that’s completely consistent with the Duke statement quoted above – this year, it was news that the domestic increase outpaced the international increase, because the reverse had generally been true in recent years.</p>

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<p>“This is old, but indicates the total number of students applying has actually gone down since 2009”</p>

<p>You are forgetting about the huge surge in foreign HS applicants to US colleges.</p>

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<p>Highbury, I think this is the exact kind of article you should show to your dd. Kids need a reality check on how competitive it is.</p>

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<p>Don’t worry Youdon’t say, she already knows. She’s also applied to a wide range of schools, all of which she’d be happy to attend. She got a few admits, including 2 financial safeties…</p>

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<p>Roundup so far:</p>

<p>UChicago up at least +15%
Stanford up 7%
Duke up 6%
Northwestern up 3.5%
Penn down -2%</p>

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<p>Thanks JHS, that is what I was wondering. So while the number of hs graduates is down, the percentage that are applying to colleges is increasing. How about information on upward trend in GPA and middle 50% SAT scores for admitted students? Unless those figures are also changing, it would seem the highly qualified applicants are still going to rise to the top for consideration.</p>

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<p>The gross census numbers have little or nothing to do with applications to the most selective institutions. Over 2 million students/year currently enroll in college for the first time. The Ivy League, Stanford, MIT, Duke, Northwestern, and the University of Chicago account for about 1% of them. The top 25 LACs may add another 0.5%.</p>

<p>Here are some top-line tables. They show that first-time college enrollment did indeed decline a bit in 2010, but that foreign student enrollment was growing.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0276.pdf[/url]”>http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0276.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0282.pdf[/url]”>http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0282.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Applications for freshman admission to elite U.S. colleges such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Columbia University are slowing after years of record increases. </p>

<p>The number of students applying to New York-based Columbia fell 8.9 percent to 31,818 for the 2011-2012 year after rising 33 percent last year when the school joined the Common Application. MIT had 1 percent growth, the smallest increase in seven years, while the University of Pennsylvania had a 1.7 percent drop after a 40 percent jump in the past three years combined. </p>

<p>[Applications</a> at Elite U.S. Colleges Slow - Bloomberg](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>

<p>And, there is the UC scene:</p>

<p><a href=“http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/13/local/la-me-uc-apply-20120113[/url]”>http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/13/local/la-me-uc-apply-20120113&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>For the current freshman class, UC boosted enrollment of non-Californians to about 12%, with big clusters at UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Diego. Out-of-staters now comprise about 7% of undergraduates systemwide, and the UC regents want to cap that figure at 10%. Even that level has upset Californians who worry that their children may be squeezed out.</p>

<p>Freshman applications from other states rose nearly 50% this year to 19,128. International applications grew 66.4%, to 13,873; China, India, Korea and Canada sent the most.</p>