Applicants per spot for Top National Unis

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I saw this for LACs, and thought it’d be interesting to look at for national unis too.</p>

<p>Applicants per spot in class</p>

<li>Pomona: 15.544</li>
<li>Amherst: 15.399</li>
<li>Swarthmore: 14.173</li>
<li>Claremont McKenna**: 14.081</li>
<li>Middlebury: 12.835</li>
<li>Bowdoin: 12.41</li>
<li>Williams: 11.92</li>
<li>Colgate: 11.827</li>
<li>Haverford: 11.137</li>
<li>Wesleyan: 10.763</li>
<li>Hamilton: 10.534</li>
<li>Reed: 10.191</li>
<li>Carleton: 10.072</li>
<li>Macalester: 9.934</li>
<li>Colby: 9.850526</li>
<li>Vassar: 9.541</li>
<li>Bates: 8.964</li>
<li>Davidson: 8.585</li>
<li>Oberlin: 8.547</li>
<li>Barnard: 8.313</li>
</ol>

<p>** Based on incorrect information. The correct number is 15.623.</p>

<p>Anyone want to do some math for top 20 unis</p>

2

<p>...I'm confused, this doesn't make sense to me. Wouldn't that make Pomona's acceptance rate just over 6 percent?</p>

3

<p>No, because just because people apply and get in doesn't mean that they enroll.</p>

4

<p>no-because not everyone who is accepted attends..they might accept say 2000 people for 700 seats (made up numbers)</p>

5

<p>Yeah, I forgot about that for a sec. But wouldn't that make their retention (or whatever the stat is called for percentage of freshmen who get in attend) numbers terrible though, cause I thought Pomona had like an 18 percent acceptance rate.</p>

6

<p>It's called yield and Pomona's isn't that bad.
On sparknotes I found that of the 5054 people who apply, 954 get in, of which 382 actually attend. This would give Pomona a yield rate of 40%.
The numbers I found might not be accurate, but I guess they won't be too aor off. A 40% yield rate actually isn't bad, but probably normal for an LAC.
Swarthmore indicates it has a yield rate of 40% and since that college isn't that different from Pomona (as in prestige and acdemics), I think Pomona's yield rate is just fine.</p>

<p>But then again, I have only compared the number to Swarthmore's, so if anyone could find a real list (I'm too lazy to calculate every LAC's yield rate), that would be great :)</p>

7

<p>applicants per spot means very little without yield data</p>

8

<p>And with yield data, it's the acceptance rate. But this is applicants per spot.</p>

9

<p>^haha yeah</p>

<p>Number of applicants is equal to name recognition more than yield</p>

10

<p>Name recognition and geographical norms. 9 of the first 11 schools are in the Northeast where there is a very strong tradition for LACs and probably there are a lot of cross-applications. Compare this with the South (only Davidson, but no W&L) or the Midwest (yes to Carleton, Macalester, and Oberlin, but no Grinnell). </p>

<p>I suspect that there is a similar effect for the National Unis. I'd do the work, but I don't have the number of applications data.</p>

11

<p>Yield is evil, it makes safety colleges reject everyone whos overqualified. I'm glad USNEWS stopped basing rankings on it</p>

12

<p>Do Note: This is a greater indicator of desirability among students than selectivity among admissions offices. Although anyone can make the logical leap to realize that admissions officers can be more selective if their school is more desirable.</p>

13

<p>Ranked by Applicants per spot</p>

<p>



US Rank School ---  Apps    Enroll  Ratio   Yield   Accept  Admit%<br>
12  WUSTL --… 21,515  1,388   15.501  34% 4,044   19% 
3   YALE --…  19,451  1,321   14.724  70% 1,880   10% 
2   HARVARD ..  22,796  1,640   13.900  78% 2,102   9%<br>
9   COLUMBIA    18,119  1,339   13.532  58% 2,318   13% 
1   PRINCETON   16,510  1,229   13.434  68% 1,807   11% 
4   STANFORD    20,195  1,633   12.367  67% 2,426   12% 
9   DARTMOUTH   12,756  1,074   11.877  49% 2,171   17% 
4   CALTECH ..  2,760   234 11.795  42% 551 20% 
15  BROWN ..    16,911  1,439   11.752  56% 2,557   15% 
21  CMU ---…  15,777  1,409   11.197  23% 6,135   39% 
17  RICE ---… 7,890   722 10.928  37% 1,970   25% 
4   MIT --….  10,440  996 10.482  67% 1,494   14% 
23  GEORGETOWN  15,285  1,551   9.855   47% 3,286   21% 
16  JHU ---…  11,278  1,154   9.773   30% 3,910   35% 
8   DUKE --…  16,820  1,724   9.756   43% 3,992   24% 
18  EMORY --.   12,011  1,259   9.540   29% 4,395   37% 
21  BERKELEY    36,989  4,101   9.020   42% 9,809   27% 
14  NORTHWESTERN    16,221  1,952   8.310   41% 4,819   30% 
12  CORNELL --...  24,452   3,108   7.867   47% 6,621   27% 
9   CHICAGO --....  9,011   1,203   7.490   33% 3,628   40% 
7   PENN ---... 18,824  2,552   7.376   65% 3,913   21% 
18  VANDERBILT  11,663  1,620   7.199   39% 4,115   35% 
20  NOTRE DAME  11,317  1,966   5.756   55% 3,582   32% 
24  UVA ---…  15,657  3,112   5.031   53% 5,898   38% 
24  MICHIGAN    23,882  6,113   3.907   45% 13,610  57% </p>

<p>

</p>

14

<p>
[quote]
Do Note: This is a greater indicator of desirability among students

[/quote]
</p>

<p>no, that is yield rate and revealed preference, you just like these rankings because you go to pomona</p>

15

<p>



USNews  Schools --  Apps    Enrol   Ratio   Yield   Admits   Admit %
2   Amherst Coll    6,273   431 14.555  37% 1,175   19%
12  Clar. McKenna   3,734   271 13.779  34% 786 21%
7   Pomona Col  5,050   383 13.185  40% 951 19%
16  Colgate     8,008   729 10.985  34% 2,168   27%
1   Williams    5,822   536 10.862  49% 1,095   19%
7   Bowdoin Col 5,026   478 10.515  39% 1,232   25%
3   Swarthmore  4,085   389 10.501  42% 917 22%
9   Haverford   3,112   316 9.848   39% 816 26%
14  Harvey Mudd     1,898   193 9.834   28% 683 36%
12  Vassar --   6,314   650 9.714   36% 1,803   29%
10  Wesleyan    6,879   717 9.594   38% 1,902   28%
5   Middlebury  5,254   553 9.501   45% 1,241   24%
6   Carleton    5,036   541 9.309   37% 1,471   29%
10  Davidson    4,258   460 9.257   40% 1,146   27%
23  Bates Col   4,356   490 8.890   39% 1,272   29%
22  Oberlin Col 6,587   741 8.889   33% 2,235   34%
17  Wash & Lee  3,950   465 8.495   41% 1,141   29%
17  Hamilton    4,189   498 8.412   33% 1,502   36%
14  Grinnell    3,121   387 8.065   28% 1,398   45%
20  Colby Coll  3,874   511 7.581   35% 1,454   38%
4   Wellesley   4,347   605 7.185   41% 1,463   34%
19  Smith Col   3,408   615 5.541   37% 1,649   48%
20  Bryn Mawr   1,938   355 5.459   39% 899 46%

</p>

16

<p>Don't take what I said out of context.</p>

<p>Quote: "This is a greater indicator of desirability among students THAN selectivity among admissions offices."</p>

<p>Read: "THAN (it is an indicator of) selectivity among admissions offices"
I didn't want to confuse with redundancy, apparently it was needed.</p>

<p>This shows how many people apply for how many spots, but needn't have anything to do with selectivity. I was saying that the numbers have more to do with popularity than selectivity, not proclaiming it as the ultimate indicator of preference (which would, obviously come from yield rates)</p>

<p>Also, the numbers I used for LACs are from this year, which explains the discrepancy in the two data sets</p>

17

<p>I found some more recent applications data for the USNWR Top 40 National Universities and the Top 20 LACs. This data is for students entering in Fall, 2006.</p>

<pre><code>Rank, National Universities, Applications, Applications Per Enrolled Spot, Acceptance Rate

NATIONAL UNIVERSITIES

</code></pre>

<p>1 Cal Tech 3071 , 16.1 , 17%
2 Columbia 15793 , 15.4 , 11%
3 Wash U StL 22251 , 15.1 , 21%
4 Yale 19451 , 14.7 , 10%
5 Harvard 22796 , 13.8 , 9%
6 Stanford 22333 , 13.6 , 11%
7 Princeton 16510 , 13.5 , 11%
8 Dartmouth 13938 , 12.8 , 16%
9 USC 33979 , 12.3 , 25%
10 Tufts 15295 , 11.9 , 27%
11 Brown 16911 , 11.7 , 15%
12 Boston College 26584 , 11.6 , 29%
13 J Hopkins 13900 , 11.5 , 27%
14 Carnegie Mellon 15777 , 11.2 , 39%
15 Rice 7890 , 10.9 , 25%
16 MIT 10440 , 10.5 , 14%
17 Duke 18090 , 10.5 , 22%
18 UC Berkeley 41750 , 10.2 , 24%
19 U Rochester 11272 , 10.2 , 48%
20 Brandeis 7640 , 10.0 , 36%
21 Georgetown 15285 , 9.9 , 21%
22 UCLA 42227 , 9.5 , 27%
23 Cornell 28098 , 8.8 , 25%
24 Lehigh 10689 , 8.8 , 39%
25 UC SD 40418 , 8.8 , 44%
26 Northwestern 16221 , 8.3 , 30%
27 W & M 10610 , 7.9 , 31%
28 U Chicago 9538 , 7.6 , 38%
29 NYU 35448 , 7.5 , 36%
30 U Penn 18824 , 7.4 , 21%
31 Case Western 7508 , 7.4 , 67%
32 Emory 12011 , 7.3 , 37%
33 Vanderbilt 11663 , 7.2 , 35%
34 Wake Forest 7484 , 6.7 , 39%
35 Notre Dame 11317 , 5.8 , 32%
36 U Virginia 16086 , 5.2 , 37%
37 U North Carolina 19728 , 5.2 , 34%
38 U Michigan 25733 , 5.1 , 47%
39 U Wisconsin 22816 , 4.0 , 58%
40 Georgia Tech 9389 , 3.3 , 69%</p>

<pre><code>LACs

</code></pre>

<p>1 Pomona 5440 , 14.4 , 18%
2 Amherst 6142 , 14.2 , 19%
3 Swarthmore 4852 , 13.1 , 19%
4 CMC 3593 , 12.1 , 22%
5 Bowdoin 5401 , 11.4 , 22%
6 Williams 5999 , 11.2 , 19%
7 Harvey Mudd 1899 , 10.9 , 36%
8 Haverford 3351 , 10.7 , 26%
9 Colgate 7873 , 10.6 , 28%
10 Wesleyan 6879 , 9.8 , 28%
11 Middlebury 5254 , 9.5 , 24%
12 W&L 4215 , 9.4 , 27%
13 Vassar 6075 , 9.1 , 30%
14 Colby 4242 , 8.9 , 33%
15 Carleton 4450 , 8.8 , 32%
16 Hamilton 4266 , 8.5 , 33%
17 Bryn Mawr 3000 , 8.5 , 44%
18 Davidson 3895 , 8.4 , 30%
19 Grinnell 3104 , 7.7 , 45%
20 Wellesley 3974 , 6.8 , 36%
21 Smith 3304 , 5.4 , 52%</p>

18

<p>^ Don't know about the other schools, but that data for Penn is for the class entering Fall 2005, not 2006. For 2006, Penn had 20,483 applications, or 8.6 applications per enrolled spot, and an acceptance rate of 18%.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.admissionsug.upenn.edu/applying/profile.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.admissionsug.upenn.edu/applying/profile.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

19

<p>Yes. Old information is more harmful than helpful to new applicants. Also, this sort of "info" can easily be misinterpreted by new applicants.</p>

20

<p>
[quote]
10 Wesleyan 6879 , 9.8 , 28%
11 Middlebury 5254 , 9.5 , 24%

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Those numbers are for 2005.</p>