<p>What's interesting to me is that everyone seems to have seen an increase in applications, and Princeton and UVa are among the schools with the smallest increases. Harvard, which also ended its early admission program, is the largest. Obviously, the financial aid initiative had a huge impact. And Chicago's much more modest new program probably accounts for a lot of its increase, too. But Northwestern was not far behind in percentage terms, and pretty darn close to Harvard in absolute numbers of new applications, and it did nothing flashy at all.</p>
<p>There's no pattern. Chicago's increase was almost all in EA applications; Northwestern's was 90% in RD applications. I haven't seen Yale's final numbers yet, but it had a huge bump in EA applications, while Stanford was flat there, and had only a small increase in RD applications. Urban colleges seem to have attracted higher numbers of new applicants . . . except that Williams is right up there with them, percentage-wise.</p>
<p>PSU apps up 1% (across all locations I think- not just UP).
Schreyer Honors College apps up 10% (41% increase in prior year). Largely due to availability of online app. Tough to get in - with only 300 entering students per year.<br> SHC</a> attracting more minorities - The Daily Collegian Online</p>
<p>In our neck of the woods (semi-rural, public hs, sends 0-2 to elites), one or more of the top students will usually apply to Harvard because they feel they have earned that right. Given another few decades, I suppose, we will get an athlete in. This year, however, we don't know how things will run. 27,000 applications is a lot to review, especially if you don't have some of the earlies out of the way. Will the hooked applications get properly tagged? Will they change the manner in which the comittee evaluates due to the sheer numbers? I assume they will hire more staff ... and though I am sure they will receive excellent training, it does add an element of uncertainty to it.</p>
<p>The more applicants you have, the less well you can review each applicant carefully. The top people only have so much time/energy to read through apps, so the "selectivity" (degree to which admits are being carefully selected) is likely to decline as the number of applicants skyrockets. Could this be the point?</p>
<p>"he top people only have so much time/energy to read through apps, so the "selectivity" (degree to which admits are being carefully selected) is likely to decline as the number of applicants skyrockets. Could this be the point?"</p>
<p>Could be the point, but it doesn't make sense to me. In addition, Harvard has rehired some of its former admissions officers to help.</p>
<p>In addition, there still are only about 1,600 spaces in the freshmen class. A boost in yield can be expected. Harvard already had the highest yield in the country. Presumably now, the admissions officers can count on even more of their first choices for the class accepting their offer, so there'll probably be less use of the wait list.</p>
<p>They probably will have some more choices, too, in the hardest to fill categories. For instance, I heard that about 10 years ago, there was only one applicant from Miss. Now, presumably, there will be more, so it will be easier for Harvard to create a class representing all 50 states.</p>
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Do we have a vicious circle, with declining acceptance rates leading to applications to more schools, leading to ...
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<p>If I may suggest a phrase to follow the dots: leading to a new equilibrium in which dozens of high-quality institutions across the nation start to attract large numbers of those students who previously thought getting into an Ivy or similar was to die for. </p>
<p>When acceptance rates dip into single digits, and students start to recognize the relatively arbitrary character of the accept/reject pattern, they will start to consider other schools. All for the better, in my humble--and perhaps naive--opinion.</p>
<p>It's hard to imagine only one applicant to Harvard from a state. How times have changed. Thanks for the Stanford info, JHS. I wonder if they will increase financial aid either later this year or next year. Harvard's new policy certainly has had an impact. </p>
<p>Sly_vt, Chicago won't be going to the Common Application until next year. This year they used only the Uncommon Application, although they did join QuestBridge for the first time. QB would only explain a small part of the increase, though.</p>
<p>"When acceptance rates dip into single digits, and students start to recognize the relatively arbitrary character of the accept/reject pattern, they will start to consider other schools. All for the better, in my humble--and perhaps naive--opinion."</p>
<p>They already are considering other schools, which is why places like Emory, Vanderbilt, Georgetown and Boston College -- which used to be reliable safeties for Ivywannabees, are now very hard to gain entrance to.</p>
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Does anyone know what the populate increase was for US kids of an age to apply to college this year? That would provide somewhat of a baseline.
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<p>Here is a chart of the National Center for Education Statistics' projection of high school graduates through 2016: </p>
<p>I can't find the underlying numbers though. The increase is pretty gradual -- about 500,000 kids total over 20 years, so something less than a 1% annual rate of increase. The numbers are projected to level off, not really decline, through 2016.</p>
<p>Live births in the U.S. in the late 80s and early 90s peaked at 4 million-something in 1992. I don't know whether/if anyone keeps track of juvenile immigrants, and if they are in the data base.</p>
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This year they used only the Uncommon Application, although they did join QuestBridge for the first time. QB would only explain a small part of the increase, though.
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<p>Way too much has been made about the increase at Chicago. After all, while the percentage cited before is large, the increase in EA was well below 1,500 applications. As one of the most competitive schools with a higher acceptance than most of its peers AND a non-binding application, why should anyone find it surprising that the school obtained a larger number of overlap applications from a group that usually was not that interested in Chicago (read HYPS.) As I wrote in an earlier thread, Chicago is simply catching up to the admissions' patterns of its peers and to the schools that are still more selective than it is.</p>
<p>There are no real lessons to learn at this time. We won't know much about the impact of the changes by Harvard and Princeton until the last yield numbers are revealed in the summer.</p>