<p>Admit rate drops to 14.2 percent
by Brooke Huestis | Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 10:21 am
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On April 1 at 5 p.m., applicants to Penn's class of 2014 will find out if they have been accepted.</p>
<p>According to Dean of Admissions Eric Furda, this year marks Penn's most selective year ever, with an acceptance rate of 14.2 percent.</p>
<p>That is a 2.9-percent drop from last year's 17.1-percent acceptance rate.</p>
<p>The applicant pool grew over 17 percent from last year, resulting in a total of 26,938 applications to next fall's incoming freshman class, the largest applicant pool in Penn's history. Penn accepted 3,830 of these applications.</p>
<p>Penn's targeted enrollment for the new freshman class is 2,420 students divided across all four undergraduate schools — the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Nursing, Wharton and the School of Engineering and Applied Science.</p>
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<p>Don’t be too upset. The Dean wants this number even lower in order to close the gap between Penn and HYP. Penn will attempt to accomplish this by getting more students to apply. I believe the vast majority of the increase in applications is coming from marginal students. Harvard has a ton of applicants who have no business whatsoever applying to Harvard and Penn wants this same set of no-hope students to apply to Penn. So as long as you’re a good candidate (2200+, top 10%, goods ECs and essays) your chances of getting admitted are as good this year as in years passed, even though the overall admit rate is falling.</p>
<p>I tend to agree with Old College Try’s reasoning–acceptance rates decrease as more non-competitive students apply and aren’t truly reflective of a competitive student’s chance, though you can’t deny acceptance IS becoming more competitive when you look at consistently rising average GPAs/test scores. It may be discouraging for applicants, but once you’re a student/alumni, falling acceptance rates will make you very happy. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, due to Penn’s class size (second largest in the Ivy League), I don’t think it ever has a reasonable chance to drop it’s admit rate significantly lower. It simply must accept more applicants than every other Ivy (except Cornell) because it has more slots to fill, and it’s yield is not as high as Harvard’s or Yale’s (I do believe ED has made its yield higher than Princeton’s, though). Even with 32,000 apps, it’s acceptance rate will still be around 12%–and 32,000 is a LOT of apps. Maybe just take the easier route and slash the class size.</p>