<p>If the acceptance rate for early was 32%, and the total acceptance rate is usually ~17%, the regular admission rate will be so astronomically low in comparison... like, at least 40% of the class is admitted through early, so we have:</p>
<p>.4(32%) + .6(X%) = 17%</p>
<p>X = 7%</p>
<p>So that would mean that it's more than four times tougher RD... is there some sort of obvious error in my reasoning/math?</p>
<p>I didn't look at your math :P but I do know that close to 50% of the class is taken ED. That way, you get kids who are truly spirited for their school and want to be there.</p>
<p>No, there's not. But there's so many reasons for that, including a high-quality ED applicant pool which results in a higher acceptance rate early... among legacies and recruited athletes. One other thing... I think they took around 47% early this year... or something a bit above 40%. It's in another thread somewhere.</p>
<p>Okay this really scared me at first but then I realized where your math went wrong. You're right that almost half the class is taken early decision, but early decision has a 100 percent yield, obviously because kids have to go. However, the yield is much lower during regular decision time (I know Cornell and Duke only have like 40 percent yields or something like that). That means they take way more kids than there are spots open during regular decision, which would make the acceptance rate around 13 or 14 percent I'm guessing.</p>
<p>Hope this makes you feel better!</p>
<p>The RD acceptance rate last year overall was 11%. You are correct: it is lower than the overall rate, by about 5%. It is indeed more difficult to be accepted RD than ED, regardless of what admissions officers like to say.</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure that last year's RD acceptance rate was higher than 11%. In any event, this year it will be between 13%-14%, depending on how many ED applications were deferred into the RD pool. Based on historical patterns, Penn will accept a few more than 2,600 students in the spring. It has about 18,800 RD applications, plus the applications deferred from ED.</p>
<p>So, yes, there is a big difference between ED acceptance rates and RD acceptance rates. This is true everywhere with an ED program. It's one of the reasons reformers hate ED, since there's little question that the rules of ED favor wealthy, sophisticated applicants, and that the ED pool is much more privileged than the RD pool.</p>
<p>On the other hand, it's worth noting that the ED acceptances include a whole bunch of recruited athletes, who have an acceptance rate close to 100%. (I.e., except in isolated cases where a coach has screwed up, a recruited athlete shouldn't be applying ED unless he or she has an indication that he or she will be accepted.) So the "real" ED acceptance rate for normal applicants is somewhere well below 32%.</p>
<p>"In any event, this year it will be between 13%-14%"
they haven't released the number of apps yet...</p>
<p>You're right. I thought they had, but I was just using someone else's projection. So make it 12-14%, which covers a range up to a more than 10% increase.</p>
<p>"I do know that close to 50% of the class is taken ED. That way, you get kids who are truly spirited for their school and want to be there."</p>
<p>they actually do that because it makes their stats look better because this way their admit rate is considerably lower</p>
<p>I know that you hate on penn in your posts and im right, not you! duhhhhhhh</p>
<p>
[quote]
The RD acceptance rate last year overall was 11%. You are correct: it is lower than the overall rate, by about 5%. It is indeed more difficult to be accepted RD than ED, regardless of what admissions officers like to say.
[/quote]
What do you mean by "difficult?" These are two different pools of applicants.</p>
<p>i read an article about why the ed acceptance rates were so high. it was because they had a drastic drop in overall applicants (an 8% drop from last year). because the applicant pool was so much smaller, but they didn't want to reduce the class size, they accepted around the same amount of people they always do.</p>
<p>so, if you think about it, the acceptance rate really won't drop that much for regular decision. if it does, it's only because more people applied regular that were considering applying early, and so the applicant pool is bigger than normal, but the number accepted stayed the same.</p>
<p>"The higher acceptance rate is a result of the fact that fewer students applied early, Dean of Admissions Eric Furda said.</p>
<p>This year, Penn received 3,666 early decision applications, compared to last year's 3,912. The University accepted 1,156 this past December.</p>
<p>Those students will compose about 47 percent of the class of 2013.</p>
<p>Although the acceptance rate rose, Furda explained that the admissions committee was no less selective this year than it was in the past."</p>
<p>etc. etc. etc.</p>
<p>in conclusion, don't worry, bb!</p>
<p>source: Early</a> admit rate rises to 32 percent this year | Interactive graph - News</p>