APPLICATIONS GROWTH Class of 2012

Parents Forum
241

<p>For Rice, maybe I'm reading it wrong, but I think that the admissions statistics for last year's class differ with the news release. Last year, Rice had 8968 applicants. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.futureowls.rice.edu/futureowls/Admission_Statistics.asp?SnID=1615184425%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.futureowls.rice.edu/futureowls/Admission_Statistics.asp?SnID=1615184425&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>If this year's number is 9734 applicants, that is only an 8.5% increase. Does anyone know how they get to the 10.7% number that they are claiming?</p>

<p>I do think it is noteworthy that the Rice ED applications increased by 27.9%, second only to Vanderbilt (41%) though both still have lower absolute numbers of ED applicants than their Ivy peers. Acceptance rates for both schools look set to be in the low to mid-20s during the RD round. </p>

<p>Has anyone seen any data on Emory, Caltech or Wash U?</p>

242

<p>
[quote]

I don't know if the University of Chicago's promotional materials have always been so sophisticated but several of my D1's friends were absolutely smitten by the "unCommon App" theme and applied there early. They did their homework -- saw the 40% admission rate -- and applied early, only to be deferred.

[/quote]

I'm wondering how many of these 'deferred' simply because of they could not locate applicants' files.</p>

243

<p>"Has anyone seen any data on Emory, Caltech or Wash U?"</p>

<p>Information about the class of 2012 at Wash U? How about the numbers for the Class of 2011. :)</p>

<p>PS Rice probably "skipped" a year and compared the class of 2012 to the Class of 2010. The increase is about 10.7%.</p>

244

<p>Re: post 239 above)</p>

<p>What has always bothered me about that number is that 48K is the median for ALL households. Almost 1/3 of those households are "non-family" households, which I think (not sure) means it is a household of one person. The median income for the "non-family households" is 29K.</p>

<p>Doesn't this mean the relevant median household figure is actually quite a bit higher than 48K? </p>

<p>(Same link as in post #239 above)</p>

245

<p>Midmo, I feel the same way. Very misleading to consider those one person households in the calculations.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Record at least if we count all the fragments, pieces and other stuff that floats in the door

[/quote]
Until these points were raised, I never imagined that colleges would count incomplete applications in their rah-rah press releases. But I bet many of them do. Just one more reason to hate this whole process.</p>

246

<p>Midmo, SS, </p>

<p>You are welcome to parse the data yourselves. I posted the link. But let's deal with facts/data, not speculation. The data is there. You may also note that what drives the median down is single parent households with children and the elderly. It is not clear to me that if you start parsing among groups it will make that much difference. </p>

<p>For example, in table 1 (see link) you can see that the average income for a married-couple household is 68K. For a single "female householder, no husband present" it is 32K.</p>

<p>Note too that the colleges did not make any such distinctions. They did not qualify their statements with mentions of "families with children" or "families with college eligible kids".</p>

247

<p>xiggi: HaHa, Your comment about Wash U made me laugh......I can't imagine them ever releasing anything.....</p>

<p>Hawkette: Last year, Emory released numbers the week after their EDII release date (which was last night)....I'd be looking for an Emory Wheel article this week with numbers.....</p>

248

<p>Hawkette-
I am guessing tht Rice's big jump in ED applications is due to the fact that they did away with Interim decision (their name for EA) this year.</p>

249

<p>Maybe, but it is remarkable to me how many more ED applicants there are to the Ivies than to these other highly ranked colleges. I think their applicant pool is possibly just a lot more plugged in to the whole college admissions process (that view would certainly be supported anecdotally here on CC) and thus understand the advantages to be gained from an early application. Only Dartmouth has an ED total similar to the non-Ivies. Here are the differences in the number of applications to the Top 20 national university ED schools:</p>

<p>3929 U Penn
3110 Cornell
2582 Columbia
2461 Brown</p>

<p>1531 Northwestern
1429 Dartmouth
1247 Duke
1133 Vanderbilt
1055 J Hopkins
661 Rice</p>

250

<p>Hawkette-
I think, if I follow you correctly, that you are talking about two different things. First, you are talking about the overall higher number of applicants to the Ivy ED pools. This could be due to a number of factors, including the changes in the financial aid offers for many of the Ivys, the slightly increased chances of admission in the ED vs RD pool, etc. </p>

<p>It is difficult to compare the number of applications to a school that gets about 20,000 overall applications (ie Penn) to a school that gets 9,000 applications (Rice). Any chance you can match up the ED numbers of a few Ivy's with some of the other top 20 schools, equating schools with either similar undergrad enrollment or undergrad application numbers as covariables? That would be an interesting comparison. Thanks in advance</p>

251

<p>No need to do a lot of sophisticated analysis-just look at some of the numbers already presented. Knock out the larger Ivies (Cornell, U Penn) and Rice and the other ED schools mentioned (Columbia, Brown, Northwestern, Duke, Vanderbilt, Johns Hopkins) are not that different in undergraduate size. </p>

<p>I think if you look at the numbers historically, the Ivies have always had many more applicants with small and remote Dartmouth being the sole exception (and I don’t think that the Ivy financial aid policies are much different from most other Top 20 colleges and in many cases would be less attractive because of the lack of merit aid). But with the increase in admissions competitiveness in recent years, the numbers of students applying to multiple Ivies has unquestionably skyrocketed. </p>

<p>I also think that the Ivy application popularity advantage is partly a function of geography and the media as they are close to the major metro areas of Boston, New York, Philly, Baltimore and DC. But I should also add that the Ivies are all terrific academic schools with great reputations and highly desired by any student seeking an outstanding education, not to mention a prestigious college name. </p>

<p>Hopkins is also in this general area, but is mostly favored by those with an interest in medicine. It is not in the same league with the non-HYP Ivies in many categories (# of applications, yield, Wall Street orientation, general visibility). They get a lot of folks with interest in medicine (nursing is their biggest major) and that is less the case with the non-HYP Ivies. Plus, the Baltimore Sun would be the least read media in all of these markets. </p>

<p>As for Northwestern, they have Chicago nearby and then...Milwaukee? Minneapolis? St. Louis? Not quite the same density like in the East. Duke has Raleigh-Durham, Charlotte, maybe Atlanta. Vanderbilt has Nashville and then...not much. And the media in their areas doesn't have the same, integrated theme of the Ivies so the awareness and visibility of these colleges is less broad. One of the ways that this is offset is through athletics and this is a major difference between these colleges and their Ivy peers. A socially strong and nationally relevant athletic program is one aspect of undergraduate life that the Ivies don't offer, but the folks in the NE don't really get major college sports and so don't realize how much fun they are missing. </p>

<p>In most of these cases where the applications numbers are smaller, I think that it is a shame because I truly believe that a student's undergraduate experience, when measured as a mix of academics, social life, and athletic life, will be better at Northwestern, Duke, and Vanderbilt than at any of the Ivies.</p>

252

<p>^^^ I was hoping you'd lay data out in a nifty table like you've done before-- this time putting schools with similar app #s or similar class size side by side with their ED app #s. It would be interesting to see. What about schols that have ED1 and ED2? Does tis throw a wrinkle in the stats?
Your density comparison is interesting. I think you are addressing 2 things-- the sheer population density-- with the number of people in the NE applying to schools relatively nearby, and also the cultural issue-- what there is to do in and around the schools. With your proximity comparison, I'd put Atlanta in the Vandy pool (its about 3 1/2 hrs away) rather than in the Duke pool (its about 7 hrs away) -- but certainly both schools pull students from Atlanta.</p>

<p>I am always disappointed that so many students poo-poo Rice Because "they don't want to go to school in Texas". As you well know, Houston is certainly different from a lot of the rest of the state. I suspect that "Texas" bias has a bit to do with the past lower numbers of students applying, comparatively, from the North. But, I think this has changed a lot since Leebron took over the Rice presidency, and Rice has seen a big increase in interest from students from the North. Do you agree?</p>

253

<p>^ My D loves Texas and applied to Rice - hoping for a scholarship.</p>

254

<p>It's interesting, but Rice's and U Virginia's acceptance rate has changed the least among all of the USNWR Top 25 national universities from the 1991 USNWR issue to the 2008 USNWR issue.</p>

<p>2008 , 1991 , Change ,<br>
10% , 17% , 7% , Princeton
9% , 18% , 9% , Harvard
9% , 19% , 10% , Yale
11% , 18% , 7% , Stanford
18% , 41% , 23% , U Penn
17% , 31% , 14% , Caltech
13% , 30% , 17% , MIT
23% , 25% , 2% , Duke
12% , 29% , 17% , Columbia
38% , 45% , 7% , U Chicago
16% , 25% , 9% , Dartmouth
21% , 54% , 33% , Wash U
25% , 30% , 5% , Cornell
14% , 24% , 10% , Brown
30% , 47% , 17% , Northwestern
27% , 48% , 21% , Johns Hopkins
24% , 24% , 0% , Rice
32% , 58% , 26% , Emory
34% , 56% , 22% , Vanderbilt
27% , 49% , 22% , Notre Dame
24% , 37% , 13% , UC Berkeley
34% , 64% , 30% , Carnegie Mellon
37% , 37% , 0% , U Virginia
22% , 24% , 2% , Georgetown
26% , 43% , 17% , UCLA
47% , 60% , 13% , U Michigan</p>

255

<p>Rice is also adding 50% to their size, so that could make a pretty humongous difference.</p>

256

<p>Rice is increasing its size by about 30% (not 50%) over several years. That could explain some increase in numbers, but doubtful that's the full explanation.</p>

257

<p><a href="http://www.pbn.com/stories/29463.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.pbn.com/stories/29463.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Rhode Island College +13%
Roger Williams +20%
Bryant +17%
URI +5%
Brown +8% (as reported before)
Salve Regina +9%
RI School of Design +9%
Johnson & Wales +14%
Providence -11%</p>

<p>on Common App influence

[quote]
Technology certainly makes it easier to apply en masse. </p>

<p>The Common Application, an admission association, allows students to apply to any of the 339 member schools by filling out one application, plus some supplemental information depending on the school. </p>

<p>“You can click a button and send to any of those schools that you want,” Quinn said. </p>

<p>Apparently, that’s what tech-savvy youngsters have been doing. The Common Application says 1.1 million applications have been submitted through its Web site – commonapp.org – since July. And in one 72-hour period between Dec. 30 and Jan. 1 – a peak time for The Common Application – 171,490 applications were processed, the group said.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>on Providence College's drop

[quote]
The reason is two-fold, according to Christopher Lydon, PC’s dean of admission. </p>

<p>PC experienced a large spike in applications the year before, when it no longer required standardized test scores in the application. Then this year, the school decided to mandate a once-optional second essay on the common application, scaring off all but serious applicants. </p>

<p>“At that point, the casual shopper decided to opt out,” Lydon said.

[/quote]
</p>

258

<p>stats table: <a href="http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/02/03/37787465_Picture_1.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/02/03/37787465_Picture_1.html&lt;/a>
article: <a href="http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/02/03/ddn020408appsinside.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/02/03/ddn020408appsinside.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Cedarville +11%
Central State +87%
U Dayton +24%
Wittenberg +43%
Wright State +25%
Miami U -8%
U Cinci +23%
Ohio State -4%</p>

<ul>
<li>no explanations of declines at Miami U or OSU.</li>
</ul>

259

<p>Hawkette's chart is interesting. What it seems to say is that it's 1-1/2 to 2 times harder to get into most private universities than it was 17 years age. Not surprisingly (in part because they have dealt with such issues by expanding their class size), the difference is not as great at the public universities (although UCLA comes close). But there are a few glaring exceptions to the rule: Rice, Georgetown, Duke, Virginia, and to a lesser extent Chicago and Cornell. (Based on this year's application numbers, however, Chicago wouldn't be an exception, since its acceptance rate is projected to decline to around 28%.) That's sort of a surprising list, since they are all colleges with good, longstanding reputations and a "rising stock" vibe. It's awfully hard to imagine an explanation for Rice's results that shouldn't apply to Vanderbilt or Emory, too. Anyone have any ideas?</p>

260

<p>JHS, I suspect the reason is that there is ultimately a limited supply of kids with enough talent (and money) to stock all these schools. So the applicant pool starts running out of steam when one moves down the prestige scale, forcing the ones near the bottom of the top (if that makes any sense :) ) to admit many more students in hopes that some of them won't enroll in a higher ranking school.</p>