Acceptance Rate?

Applying to College
1

<p>How do you guys feel about the selectivity (rate of acceptance) of colleges? I think it's pretty skewed, and I don't think it accurately represents the rate of acceptance. For example, a few college that I'm looking at have a 10.7%, 25.6% and a roughly 33%, but is that an accurate representation of the students that are accepted?</p>

<p>What I think is that it really doesn't show how many percent of students get accepted, because for example, Stanford, which has a really low rate of acceptance (6.6% last time I checked), the students who apply there are generally really exceptional students. You wouldn't expect a whole lot of 2.5 GPA with no ECs applying, so wouldn't that really mess up the acceptance rate? That would mean, out of 100 really amazing students, there are probably 6 or 7 that get accepted.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, say for instance another local state university reports a 45% acceptance rate that would mean that out of 100 decent to above average students, 45 get in.</p>

<p>So I guess what I'm wondering is why people use selectivity to compare schools? Sure it might work among schools of the same tier, but is it really an accurate way to present selectivity between an Ivy and a decent state college?</p>

2

<p>Rankings are based on more than just selectivity. However, the varying acceptance rates tells students how competitive gaining admission into a university is compared to another. For example, Columbia has over 30,000 applicants applying every year for under 2000 available spots. Compared that with the University of Florida which sees about 27,000 students apply every year for approximately 7000 spots.
This means that Columbia will have the option to choose the best of the best to fill empty places in their class. However, University of Florida will have to accept some above average students and not just the best students to fill their class.
So no, selectivity doesn’t tell you how good a school is but it does give you an idea of how competitive the admissions are.</p>

3

<p>xFirefirex,</p>

<p>I get what you’re saying, but does it really tell you how competitive the admissions will be? If you are a top-notch student who ends up applying to a decent in-state college does it actually tell you how competitive the admissions will be for you among the other students? I just feel like they need a more specific system…hmm… </p>

4

<p>

For what? Admit rate/selectivity is a measure of kids who apply divided by beds available for them. Anything else – is ascribed to this percentage by outside observers.</p>

5

<p>If you look at the admission stat closely, some schools actually show the acceptance rate at each test score or GPA interval. The acceptance rate you mentioned is just the overall admission rate. Here is one example from MIT:
<a href=“Admissions statistics | MIT Admissions”>http://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/stats&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

6

<p>So if you look at billcsho’s link or even go to Princeton’s website, you’ll see that a little over 13% of people with the tippy top scores get accepted while about 8-10% of those with really high scores get accepted. If anything, this would lead to the assumption that test scores and GPA are not the deciding factors; ECs and essays are.</p>

7

<p>@Aelaenia. If you are going to quote statistics please do a simple research to get the facts…Stanford’s acceptance rate that you are quoting is 2 years old. Last year it was 5.69%. The lowest in the country. It didn’t seem to have deterred any of the top students from around the world from applying this year. Last year about 38,800 applied…this year they have about 43,000 applying with even fewer being admitted due to higher yield. So you can imagine how scary LOW the acceptance rate will be this year…less than 5%. Who knows how many more will be applying to Stanford next year? And there is extremely limited room at the inn. </p>

<p><a href=“Stanford beats out all of the Ivy League schools by having the toughest admissions rate of all | Daily Mail Online”>Stanford beats out all of the Ivy League schools by having the toughest admissions rate of all | Daily Mail Online;

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<p>And acceptance rates or selectivity do reflect the quality of the school…just look at the list above.</p>

8

<p>Acceptance rates are not reliable indicators of selectivity.</p>

<p><a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/lowest-acceptance-rate?src=stats”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/lowest-acceptance-rate?src=stats&lt;/a&gt; indicates that College of the Ozarks has a lower acceptance rate than Brown, Dartmouth, UPenn, Caltech, Amherst, Pomona, and Duke. But it reports a 3.58 HS GPA average and 22 average ACT among its frosh, according to <a href=“http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1804”>http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1804&lt;/a&gt; .</p>

<p>UT Austin reports a 47% acceptance rate, but that hides the fact it is an admissions safety for those who qualify for its automatic admission criteria (top 7% rank in a Texas high school), while it is probably a reach or high match for all others who much compete for the remaining 25% of the frosh class (100% acceptance rate for the automatic admission eligible applicants, but probably around 18% acceptance rate for all others, many of whom likely have less chance due to being lower ranked than the top 7%).</p>

<p>Overall acceptance rates for schools may also mask differences in selectivity between different divisions and majors. At UT Austin, engineering and business are generally thought to be more selective, so automatic admission eligible applicants may not get into their desired divisions/majors, while others face a higher bar if they select those divisions/majors.</p>

9

<p>Acceptance rate just reflect the supply and demand. The admission stat provide additional information but often linked. When UMich joined CommonApp, the admission rate went down from 50+% to 35% while the admission stat was also slightly increased. I don’t think there is any significant change in the quality of the school in that couple years. When there are more students applying to a school, the admission rate must go down due to the limited seats. At the same time, the school can pick students with better credential to fill the class. It does not make sense to compare schools for their admission rate when they have a totally different spectrum of prospect students or a very different size.</p>