<p>Some tough admits in 2013 - many single digits.</p>
<p>What’s interesting is ED/EA vs RD.</p>
<p>Interesting…but really only a couple of surprises. The schools that are often discussed as lottery schools were the single digit ones.</p>
<p>Significant differences early vs. regular. Oldfort is right.</p>
<p>We recently did a tour of High Point University, on the way home from spring break vacation. HPU told us that if you want to get in, you have a better chance if you apply EA (not ED) as that’s where they get most of their students from. The financial aid was better too. They said they use the RD students to fill the areas that they are lacking.</p>
<p>Interesting perspective. Looking at the early vs. regular numbers, it appears these schools do the same.</p>
<p>At a UChicago reception for admits they stated that the RD rate was 5% yet I notice they didn’t release that to the media. If I were any good at math I would run the numbers…</p>
<p>That makes sense Kennedy with the early being 13 and overall 8.8%. I thought WashU was crazy at 13% RD but that was nothing compared to Chicago and many of these.</p>
<p>Yes, applicants for next year should really pay attention to the early acceptance rates vs. the regular admission rates. My kids purposefully did not apply to any college with binding early decision, because 1) they didn’t want to commit to any college early, and 2) they didn’t like the fact that those colleges filled most of their class through the binding early process and made it so hard for non-binding applicants. </p>
<p>Binding early decision is a trick that many colleges use to maintain a very high percentage of full pay students who don’t need to compare financial aid. Binding early decision also allows a college to artificially lower than acceptance rates and raise their yield rates. </p>
<p>As of 2 years ago, U. Penn did not offer any admissions preference to legacy applicants unless they applied binding early decision. They said it was more preference for early decision, but if you actually looked at the numbers, there was no preference for the regular cycle.</p>
<p>I am very interested in Boston College’s numbers this year. Their applications went way down for EA, I know.</p>
<p>Most schools do not give any preference to legacies except during the ED round - use it or lose it.</p>
<p>Your kids were quite noble with Reason #2. That would be a reason for me to encourage kids to apply ED if they were in the position to do so. </p>
<p>None of mine were. At that stage of the process, they were still all over the place in terms of where they wanted to go, and they all developed strong ideas of what they wanted and did not want. I could have probably bulldozed them into ED, but it would have likely led to problems because they are an obdurate group. It took going through the process all the way to spring for them to have some idea what they wanted. In some ways I envy those kids who would not care if they got into COllege A or B and are trying to decide (with C, D, E and the rest of the ED alphabet in line) college to which to use the ED advantage for the best chance to get in. I remember my one kid’s friend. He just wanted ivy. Any ivy. Or other highly selective name brand college, he did not care which and his agony over ED was "wasting"it on a school that might reject him. He wanted to apply to the one where he had the best chance of getting accepted and did not care about anything else about the school. Not so with my kids. </p>
<p>Penn does only give preferences to legacies in the ED round. I don’t know if most schools operate that way, but some do. My alma mater does too.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse - my D was also not prepared to do any EA or ED applications so she only submitted RD. This basically killed her chances of admission to most (but not all) schools as a recruited athlete - so she will be doing club sports instead. She is OK with that and it is probably better in the long run. However, EA is definitely a consideration for student athletes.</p>
<p>Crazy thing, someone posted on Michigan site (attached actual link) that just ten years ago Chicago accepted 62%. How crazy is that - 62% to 9% in ten years. WOW!</p>
<p>Interesting chart. I would guess that students apply to 10-15 schools today but 20 years ago only applied to 3-5, so all the schools can show more applicants and admit fewer students. Many of those students are the same students and couldn’t go to more than one anyway.</p>
<p>The schools continue to get less selective, less likely to get the applicants who specifically would benefit from what that particular school is likely to offer to actually attend.</p>
<p>It’s smoke and mirrors! Many more applications because of the common application and Internet. Selectivity is decreasing not increasing. Funds are also going down as the economy fails to improve for the middle class. The time will soon come that the admissions will be easier, particularly for full pay students, at 20-40 top LAC and colleges! ( heck it’s probably there already however, manipulating statistics,not easily demonstrated). The time is coming where a buyers market will be in force ( relatively speaking) not at the top 20 but definitely in the the schools ranked below the top 20.</p>
<p>In the northeast, there are declining numbers of high school grads. However, I believe the increase in selectivity is driven by: a) a huge increase in highly qualified international applicants, many of which are full pay, and b) students in the midwest showing a greater interest in colleges along the coasts.</p>
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<p>This is really interesting, mini (and liberty55). “Selective” should mean exactly that, and it doesn’t. Everyone who participates is a victim of the arms race, including the schools who allegedly hold the power. In some ways, they don’t.</p>
<p>In any case, we should refer all the students on the “chance” threads to this article. It lays things out pretty clearly.</p>
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<p>No, it’s not.</p>
<p>“A look at 2013 admission decisions at dozens of colleges and universities.”</p>
<p>There are over 2,000 four-year non-profit institutions of higher education in the United States.</p>
<p>Personally, I find this annual NY Times exercise to be pretty worthless.</p>
<p>I know a number of students now who are applying to more than a dozen schools which was a rare case back 10-15 years ago. 10 was considered a lot and schools would balk unless one had good reason to go over 6-8. Now they are silently processing 15 and even more I know because my son applied to 15 of them a couple of years ago. With the common app, free on line and on site apps, it 's easy enough to do. When one looks at all of these apps thrown out there it’s hard to compare the true selectivity since each kid can only go to one school. I can see where ED has become valuable to schools. </p>
<p>Also, more kids seem to be applying to the same danged schools and if a college is lucky enough to be in that batch, their stats have gone sky high. Northeastern has become very hot in this neck of the woods.</p>