If OP is looking for computer science at CMU SCS (you have to declare) their acceptance rate is 5%
“An AO from UIUC told my daughter about three weeks ago that they had a 12% admit rate to CS last year. I haven’t seen that number published anywhere else, however.”
Let’s see if that holds water.
- UIUC had 15,000 Eng+CS appliations, made 6600 offers, 1900 enrolled.
Thats a 44% admit rate, 30% yield. - UIUC has 1800 CS students, so they have ~400 per class… conservatively.
Based on the yield rate, each year UIUC would need to admit 1300 students for CS to get 400 to enroll. - therefore a 12% admit rate would have 1300/0.12 applicants… 11,000.
- That would mean UIUC received only 4000 applications for engineering. However, UIUC would have then made 5300 offers for engineering… a yield of 120%… verses the 30% stated yield.
The AO is full of it… by a factor of 2. It’s called marketing.
I think the list is good as long as he would be happy at Stony Brook. Handling disappointment well is a great life skill, so let him shoot for the stars and maybe one will fall for him. He’s got a stellar record and should be really proud no matter what happens.
The reason many of us have learned the hard way to use admission rates to define safeties/matches is that the “quartile” data can be very misleading. As the data Harvard was forced to release showed, the bottom quartile at many schools is primarily athletes (with a few developments admits and others mixed in), which brings the over all averages down significantly. If you remove the special admits, a kid in the 85% band can become a kid in the 40%.
At the top schools admit rates aren’t very instructive, either. Estimates based on the Harvard data show the unhooked admit rates can be as little as 1/4-1/3 the overall rate at the most competitive schools, e.g. 3% instead of the announced 8%. The reason is the unhooked kids make up only 20-30% of the admits at these schools, but 60-70% (or more) of the applicants.
It would be really helpful if schools published this data so we all could make better application decisions, but they apparently fear a backlash of some sort if the world knew how incredibly difficult it is to get into these schools.
More than likely the 12% comes from slots vs applications. … 400/0.12 … 3300 CS applications.
3300 CS applications and 11000 engineering applications make sense.
Sure, if he’s ok with Stony Brook. And CC can be quite tough, at times.
But where to worry is kids who focus on stats match and everything they want and like in a college- and miss the rest it takes to get the admit. They become confident of their list, stratify it into reach and match. They imagine themseleves on those campuses, satisfied. But they forget to consider what the apps and supps need to show and convey, beyond stats, some award or title.
No matter how many admit leans go to athletes and others, your app has to hit the mark. The whole thing. For top holistic colleges.
Rutgers and Maryland College Park are two public flagships with solid computer science programs that could be considered safeties with this student’s stats.
Thank you for all the input. Frustrating that there are not published rates of acceptance for CS at most of the schools. What about Notre Dame makes it #1 at this point? Besides the quality of education. The campus atmosphere - smaller size, and not in a big city, and beautiful campus buildings. The vibe of the students on campus just seamed to fit my sons personality. He felt like he belonged there. The marching band became a huge draw after meeting with the band manager for over an hour. Visited 7 campuses after, including ivy leagues, his words were - “None compare”. Didn’t like the size and layout of couple of big state schools. Didn’t like being too much in a city, waiting at lights to cross streets to get to another building. Only tangible thing you can use is the academic and testing stats and the admission rate. It seams the only “safe schools” are ones in which his stats are significantly higher than the top end of the averages. Right now it looks like applying early action to a reach (Notre Dame), a target (UMASS), and a safe (Stoneybrook). Researching more to see if there are any other schools that are safer targets.
When looking for safer targets, he’ll probably have to decide whether to compromise on size or on quality of the marching band program. There aren’t a ton of midsized schools with good marching bands (which was why I brought up Vandy as another of the rare exceptions to that rule, along with ND and NU - but all very reachy. BC could be a great option - not that it’s a slam-dunk either.)
How about UMichigan? It’s large of course but one can aim to study CS in LSA and be in the Residential College program. Not a safety, for sure, but not quite as high a reach. He might like the vibe in Ann Arbor.
UMinnesota is strong in CS and has a terrific marching band program. Also CU-Boulder and UofUtah, which has a great Honors College. But my sense is that none of these meet your geographic criteria.
As an FYI, for an OOS student, UMich has an acceptance rate of 19%. And yes, you can either apply to LSA and study CS or you can apply to the CoE to study CS. Similar programs, but not exactly the same. UMich has a top CS program.
As a parent of a UMich student, who has visited the campus many times now, including just attending the UMich-ND game last Saturday night, I can say that, for me, Central Campus has a smaller campus feeling. And the town is very walkable (or runable).
Son was accepted into CS at UMASS Amherst with the Chancellor’s merit scholarship which is pretty nice amount. So glad that came in 1st because at least its something positive if his top choice is a no. Hoping tonight will be a great night, but knowing odds are against it. It is a stressful waiting game. Very hard for him to write essays about why he wants to go to a certain college, when the reality is he wants to go to his top choice.
Where you’re looking at a website that says your son’s stats are 70-90% above admitted students, that doesn’t mean he necessarily has a good chance of getting in. By calculating “admissions statistics” based off of admitted students, they fail to take into account that many more students with your son’s stats or higher have been rejected. You need to look at the statistics of rejected students as well as the statistics of the accepted ones.
Turns out son was accepted into Notre Dame- so big time celebrating ahead!!
Great news! Congrats to him and to you!