A bit confused about Wash U in St. Louis's acceptance rate...

Applying to College
1

<p>(I haven't been following this board for over a year, so sorry if I'm repeating a discussion.)</p>

<p>Well, I got into Wash U. In the acceptance letter, they state that their freshman class of about 1350 students was chosen from over 22,000 applicants. That's a 6.1% acceptance rate. I know that many schools this year had drastically lower acceptance rates because of the surge in applications, but 6.1%, at a non-HYPSM school?! What's going on here? Is it just that Wash U sends many more "feeder" letters out to kids to get them to apply so many more do, or what?</p>

<p>I contrast this 6.1% with the rate at Northwestern, my current top choice. Princeton Review says it's 30%, although that's probably last year's number. Still, it couldn't have fallen more than 10%, right? I've always put Northwestern and Wash U in the same tier of school, maybe even put Northwestern a bit higher. I know acceptance rates are a poor indication of how good the school is, but I still must wonder why Wash U's is so low compared to a school that is so often compared to it.</p>

<p>Thanks for any comments.</p>

2

<p>Wash U accepted more than 1350 students. That's their target freshman class, but they took more than that.</p>

3

<p>if im not mistaken, i think they took in about 4000, which would make their acceptance rate around 18 percent</p>

<p>WashU is accused of playing some waitlisting game so they've probably waitlisted a lot of students too, I don't know the exact numbers though. Congrats on both NW and WashU, i'll be going to WashU in the fall...perhaps i'll see you there ;-)</p>

4

<p>True, I didn't consider that. I wonder what their expected yield rate is...</p>

5

<p>The freshman class may be 1350 students, but they have to accept more than 1350 students to get that many to enroll. Wash U's acceptance rate is something like 19 or 20%. This is still pretty low (and, indeed, perhaps a function of an agressive marketing campaign that inflates the numbers of applications from student who, realistically, do not have much of a chance of being admitted). </p>

<p>As between Northwestern and Wash U, I would go for Northwestern.</p>

6

<p>Washington University in St Louis</p>

<p>From US News for Class that entered Fall 2004
Total applicants: 19,822
Total acceptances: 4,400
Overall acceptance rate: 22.19%
Total freshman enrollment: 1,452
Yield: 33%
Students enrolled from waiting list: 134
9.2% of the Class came from the Wait List</p>

<p>While things change from year to year they don't change that dramatically.</p>

<p>So if they said in their letter to you they said they had 22,000 applicants and their target class size is 1350, they had to have sent acceptances to about 4,000 students unless they expect their yield to be dramatically better than it has been historically.</p>

<p>My Estimate for class entering in Fall 2006
Total applicants 22,000
Total acceptances 4,000
overall acceptance rate 18.18%
to get a class of 1350 with a yield of approx 33.5%
and we don't know how much they will have to use the Wait List to get up to 1350 students.</p>

<p>Extensive use of the wait list allows a school to artificially depress their "acceptance rate", but is necessary to avoid over enrollment because of the uncertainty of the yield.</p>

<p>Regarding Northwestern University
From US News for Class that entered Fall 2004
Total applicants: 15,637
Total acceptances: 4,684
Overall Acceptance Rate 29.95%
Total freshman enrollment: 1,915
Yield: 40.9%
Students enrolled from waiting list: 155
8% of the Class came from the Wait List</p>

<p>Northwestern's Yield of admitted students appears to be higher 40.9% than Washington U's 33% for the class entering in fall 2004.</p>

<p>Northwestern gets 28% of it's class from early decision
Washington U doesn't reveal how much of it's class is ED</p>

<p>But when all is said and done, you need to decide which University provides you the programs and experiences you want.</p>

<p>Both are Great Schools
Congratulations and
Good Luck deciding :)</p>

7

<p>Waitlisted kids are acceptances, but only 1400 can enroll (35-40 in January Program)</p>

8

<br>


<br>

<p>WashU is so shady its unbelievable. Go to Northwestern, people older than 25 are not aware of WashUs recent rise and these are the people who will impact your life the most. Meanwhile Northwestern has been top notch for a long long time.</p>

9

<p>I think this is what it means: They expect a class of 1350 to enroll, but more than that were accepted. I had the same skewed statistics on my UNC and Delaware (!) acceptance letters.</p>