<p>Wash and Lee is legitimately in the 15% range, although my guess is its prob higher after waitlist activity. W&L opened up a new scholarship program offering a very large number of full rides which is the reason for this. I don;t love W&L at all, but the number is apparently real. It was 28% the year before.</p>
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UChicago was for a long time at 40%, but in the past couple of years it's gone down to 38%, to 35%, and now this. Ridiculous.
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<p>After H and P got rid of early admissions, Chicago's EA pool shot up this past year. That probably contributes to it.</p>
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I think admissions are enough of a random event to warrant applying to more schools. Just look at the results for people who apply to the ivies...
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<p>I'm not sure you understand basic statistics.</p>
<p>Let's say you were applying to 5 schools: 2 reaches, 2 matches, and 1 safety. To determine which college you'll get into, we put the names in a hat, and pull 1 college out at random. (Of course, you may get into more, but for simplicity, we'll go with 1.) You have, of course, 40% chance of getting into a reach, 40% at a match, etc. Now let's say you applied to 10 colleges: 7 reaches, 2 matches, 1 safety. You now have a 70% chance of getting into a reach school.</p>
<p>However, this is not how college admissions work. Applying to more reaches does not mean that you're more likely to get into one of them, because each school screens applicants. If a student had a 2.2 GPA, 1650 SAT, no ECs, no awards, horribly written essays, poor interviews/recommendations, etc. would he have a better chance of getting into a reach if he applied to 10 top privates rather than 5? No. He will still probably be rejected from all of them.</p>
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Anyways, I see nothing wrong with applying to more than a couple schools.
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<p>You know what's wrong with it? Many students think (wrongly) just like you. And so they apply to more reaches. Now, these reach colleges, in evaluating you and these students, don't know whether you'll attend; they don't know whether you applied to other schools (they assume you have), they don't know whether you'll get in, and they don't know whether you'll choose somewhere else. But, let's say this student applied to 4 other colleges; they are 1 in 4, and they have 3 to beat. But if the student applied to 10, then they have 9 to beat. It's more competitive all around: the same number of students are competing for a fixed number of spots (but the number vying for these spots increases much more as students apply to more and more colleges). In the end, the whole process is so uncertain, nobody knows where they're going to get in and no college knows who's going to attend. So what do students do? They apply to more colleges for more "certainty," when really they're just causing more uncertainty.</p>
<p>Applying to more colleges increases the certainty for yourself, and decreases it for others in a sense. It sounds really selfish to put it like that but since you can't change the way the other thousands of students are going to look at it you might as well look out for your best interests. You get one chance (normally) to apply to undergraduate so you might as well put your best foot forward. It's not very smart to fight a war with 100 guys when the other side has 1000.</p>
<p>In the case of the really elite colleges applying to more is a safer option since the admissions decisions can be random. You can have a 2250 SAT, 4.0 GPA, great ECs and get rejected from every Ivy except say Brown. Kid with similar stats applies to the same places and gets rejected from Brown but into Dartmouth, it's happened hundreds of times on this site.</p>
<p>agreed with nd09.</p>
<p>kyledavid, when a student is borderline for a certain school they increase their chances at getting into schools of similar competiveness by applying to several. like it or not, there is variance(who happens to read your essay, or if the school wants to go in a different direction with their student body or something, etc) in college admissions, and applying to 5 schools that you're 50/50 (of course it's not as simple as this) at improve your chances of getting into one. </p>
<p>what you're saying is true only when a student is nowhere near good enough to be considered for admission.</p>
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when a student is borderline for a certain school they increase their chances at getting into schools of similar competiveness by applying to several.
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<p>No, that's really not how the world works.</p>
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ho happens to read your essay, or if the school wants to go in a different direction with their student body or something, etc
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<p>Those are not random events. For one, multiple people read your application. In addition, other factors that would change outcomes should be taken into account when deciding reach/match/safety.</p>
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what you're saying is true only when a student is nowhere near good enough to be considered for admission.
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<p>...no. I gave that as an extreme example. When trying to demonstrate a concept, you often extrapolate on it and show an extreme example. It's true for everyone.</p>
<p>If you want to reject these basic concepts of statistics, go ahead. It's not as though you're the only stubborn applicant.</p>
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Applying to more colleges increases the certainty for yourself, and decreases it for others in a sense. It sounds really selfish to put it like that but since you can't change the way the other thousands of students are going to look at it you might as well look out for your best interests.
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<p>Yes, it's game theory, but it's that constant suspicion that causes everyone to lose. Ever heard of the prisoner's dilemma? Same deal here.</p>
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Kid with similar stats applies to the same places and gets rejected from Brown but into Dartmouth, it's happened hundreds of times on this site.
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<p>I don't think it's happened "hundreds" of times. You can try to find the data, but I doubt you'd find hundreds of cases on CC.</p>
<p>kyledavid80 makes excellent points (as always).</p>
<p>I have just gone through the admission cycle, and I "only" applied to 7 schools. I made very careful choices, being sure that my safeties, match and reach schools were places I would actually be willing to attend and enjoy. For those of you just starting your applications, you have no idea how stressful April can be - making that final choice and "letting go" of the colleges you do not choose to attend. At first I felt lucky to be accepted at all 7 of my schools, but as it came down to May 1st, I secretly wished only ONE school had accepted me so I wouldn't have to make that huge decision! I cannot imagine how difficult it will be for those of you are applying to 20 or more schools.</p>
<p>i lol'ed at the 5.6% RD acceptance rate at Yale.
crazy numbers</p>
<p>This makes me want to go to community college. Those numbers are ridiculous.</p>
<p>I totally agree ... Schools are going down 10% in acceptance rates - its insane - i think that Emory and Holy Cross have also experienced really big drops in acceptances</p>
<p>these numbers are abysmal lol
anyone know how the stats will look for class of 2010?</p>
<p>Hopefully a teensy-tiny bit better. The class of 2008 was the biggest in history, and 2009 will be as big, if not bigger. Then it starts to go back down. Unfortunately, the panic left over from these two crazy years means MORE students will be applying to even MORE school and it will just add to the problem.</p>
<p>Does anyone know WashU's yet?</p>
<p>Here's my FAQ about population trends and admission rates: </p>
<p>DEMOGRAPHICS </p>
<p>Population trends in the United States are not the only issue influencing the competitiveness of college admission here. The children already born show us what the expected number of high school students are in various years, but the number of high school students in the United States, which is expected to begin declining in a few years, isn't the whole story. </p>
<p>First of all, if more students who begin high school go on to college, there will be more applicants to college even with a declining number of high school students. And that is the trend in the United States and worldwide. </p>
<p>Second, colleges in the United States accept applications from all over the world, so it is quite possible that demographic trends in the United States will not be the main influence on how many students apply to college. The cohorts of high-school-age students are still increasing in size in some countries (NOT most of Europe). </p>
<p>Third, even if the number of applicants to colleges overall stays the same, or even declines, the number of applicants to the most competitive colleges may still increase. The trend around the world is a "flight to quality" of students trying to get into the best college they can in increasing numbers, and increasing their consensus about which colleges to put at the top of their application lists. I do not expect college admission to be any easier for my youngest child than for my oldest child, even though she is part of a smaller birth cohort in the United States. </p>
<p>And now I would add to this that at the very most selective colleges that have just announced new financial aid plans, next year's (and the following year's) crush of applicants will be larger than ever. When colleges that are already acknowledged to be great colleges start reducing their net cost down to what the majority of families in the United States can afford, those colleges will receive more applications from all parts of the United States, and very likely from all over the world. </p>
<p>The Austin American-Statesman newspaper in Texas published news about these trends in an article about a particular applicant in April 2008. </p>
<p>The Economist magazine published a brief article about these trends in April 2008. </p>
<p>I couldn't find specifics on Wash U but i found btw 17%-21& overall</p>