<p>So you want to know the acceptance? Here's an excerpt from the blog:</p>
<p>"You know that we saw a 45 percent increase in early action applications. With the 10 percent increase in regular notification applications, the boost in applications leveled out to a 20 percent increase overall--12,300 applicants. We also admitted fewer students around 3,400 instead of our usual 3,600. We put more students on the waiting list and hope to use it more than we did last year, the number to be determined by the kind of response we get by May 1."</p>
<p>So that puts the rate at about 27.6%
How does that add to your perception of prestige?</p>
<p>doesn't. UChicago was already way up there. after my college search I realized acceptance rates don't mean a thing, to me at least. Harvey Mudd had 30%, UChicago had 47% or thereabouts, (might be 37%, but it's still far higher than the ones usually given huge prestige, i.e. HYPSM) Smith had at least 50%. great colleges that are regarded very highly, all ones I applied to, part of my top 5 that I would be happy to go to for sure.</p>
<p>LouieCope08, are you sure that the number accepted includes EA admits? It does seem like a huge jump from ~40% to 27.6%. Well, if that's right, then that's awesome for Chicago!</p>
<p>apathy's right. Harvey Mudd is an amazing school, and its students have much higher SATs than the students at pretty much any other university (even MIT), yet it has a pretty high admissions rate. Clearly, admissions rate has nothing to do with a school's academic programs or strength of the student body.</p>
<p>Yea, I think prestige can suck it. I had seen some stuff about the acceptance rate and relating it to prestige and whatnot, so I had to throw that bit in there. But yea, 3,400 is about the total acceptances they have every year...check the class statistics.</p>
<p>Well, I'm not. What I like to see is that if a student carefully selects a university that appears to mutually fit, and is a strong applicant (given that all areas of the application are strong - which we never know for sure), that student has a strong chance of admission. With the numbers we are seeing now, admission is more problamatic.</p>
<p>Ohio_mom, I agree with you completely. My "now everybody should be happy" comment was sort of bitter, directed towards people who thought our admission rate was too high, and now we might be a "good" school because we rejected more people this year. I, for one, am not that happy. And I doubt I would have gotten in had I applied this year.</p>
<p>Is there any count on essay any more? The interesting of uncommon essay topic was the one prompt my kid applying UofC. And spending the most time on them. I would be kind of dissapointed if the essay did not count any more.</p>
<p>The essays still count, of course, and probably still to a great extent. However, with the application increase, admissions standards inevitably become more numbers-oriented.</p>
<p>The uncommon prompts will still be there, as I and my fellow students were invited to write prompts for next year's supplement.</p>
<p>I don't think that the changeover is as big of a deal as people are making it out to be. Until a couple of years ago, very "traditional" schools like Cornell and Northwestern, Columbia and Penn, were not common app schools. Now Cornell and Northwestern are, though I don't know about Columbia and Penn. Schools that are very "untraditional," like Reed and Harvey Mudd, are also common app schools. The common app makes it easier for students to apply to many schools, sure, but it does not erode or reinforce a character of a school. I think that the university character is more self-perpetuating than simply switching from one format application to another.</p>
<p>Where I'm totally on ground with phuriku, though, is about numbers-based admission... when all the apples begin to look alike, can you blame somebody for choosing the shiniest? This is also probably because phuriku and I both feel our strengths as students were not in our tangibles but in other things.</p>