<p>[Regular</a> decision yields 15.6% acceptance rate - The Bowdoin Orient](<a href=“http://orient.bowdoin.edu/orient/article.php?date=2011-04-01§ion=1&id=2]Regular”>http://orient.bowdoin.edu/orient/article.php?date=2011-04-01§ion=1&id=2)</p>
<p>Bowdoin is a hot school right now. I wonder what the acceptance rate will be next year.</p>
<p>Im hoping for an increase in the yield rate this year! Last year it was 28.6 so hopefully it can increase at least a little :)</p>
<p>Bowdoin’s overall yield rate was 43% last year, not 28.6% quoted in the article, which was obviously the yield rate for Regular Admissions only.</p>
<p>The yield rate for RD-only is the more telling figure. I’m glad they report it. The ED yield rate is 100% (or, if I recall correctly, very close to that because two ED admits could not accept for financial reasons). Of those that have a choice to attend or not, over 1/4 choose Bowdoin. That’s a fact worth knowing. Of those who are accepted, including those who are accepted and are contractually obligated to attend, 43% “choose” to attend Bowdoin. That’s just nonsensical information. From there, to begin making any sense of it, you need to know more about the number of ED admits. And the number of RD admits. And then reconcile the information with the 43% figure…pretty much all to get to the 28.6% number.</p>
<p>“Bowdoin is a hot school right now.”</p>
<p>Why do you say that?</p>
<p>I assume it’s because that’s his/her opinion. Are you seriously looking for an objective analysis defending a college’s “hotness?” <– rhetorical, I am not at all interested in an answer.</p>
<p>No, d’yer, but I was looking for an answer defining, not defending, what the writer meant by “hotness,” as you call it. I intended to imply that in my question; perhaps I didn’t succeed.</p>
<p>Growing national recognition in one field or another? Increasing/enviable rate of success/admisssions to top grad schools? Success measured by some other means? New construction/endowments/awards? Some new survey results? These are the sort of things I thought might be behind the original comment.</p>
<p>I was surprised, as you might be, how little familiarity there is out here in the west with many of the quality SLAC’s in New England and elsewhere. Mention of Williams is often met with “You mean Willam and Mary?” and Wesleyan similarly gets “Wellesley?” And there’s always, “How do you pronounce Bowdoin?”</p>
<p>I have learned a lot in the last few months but I am still working my way up the learning curve. I was trying to move up a bit further by seeing what data - not personal opinion -might support the original statement, and what it meant.</p>
<p>That having been clarified, I am interested in whatever you, mufasa, or anyone else has to say on the subject.</p>
<p>All I know is that, in the case of Bowdoin, it is not defined in terms of weather.</p>
<p>Personally, I think in this environment that finding a “hot” college is a lot like finding a “hot” dot com stock in the '90s. The demand has lost all connection to reality. It means little, if anything at all, in our batcr@p crazy world where, just for example, Brown gets over 30,000 applications and has a 8% acceptance rate. And, honestly, the idea should be different from picking a stock, which has the same value regardless of who the owner might be. Whether a college is “hot” – in terms of demand – should have 0.00 bearing on whether it is “hot” as it relates to a prospective applicant’s wants, needs, dreams, desires, goals, interests, etc. And yet I’d be lying if I told you that my own S wasn’t a little bit impressed by acceptances from the schools with puny acceptance rates (which, I presume, is why those acceptance letters make a point of telling the students how many applications were received for a limited number of places). Still, I contend it’s just silly talk, however “hot” is defined.</p>
<p>still, people that applied ED already “chose” Bowdoin as their first choice. So they also have a choice too.</p>
<p>In fact, if you want to talk about “of those that actually chose between other options”, what about all the ED’ers who “chose” bowdoin but didn’t get in? </p>
<p>so in fact, 43% is a low figure given the fact that lots of other people “chose” bowdoin over other ED schools but then didn’t get in.</p>
<p>That’s a valid point. But I submit to you that people who are not offered admission to Bowdoin shouldn’t be counted as having a “choice” to attend Bowdoin as it’s a choice they never actually have. Not only is choosing Bowdoin an imaginary choice where they haven’t been accepted, the applicants in the ED pool (including accepted applicants) are exercising a purely imaginary choice to forego matriculating at other colleges where they’ve not been accepted.</p>
<p>You’re correct, however, in that they exercised a choice as to where they’d like to not have a choice…and there’s something to be said for that. It’s just not the same thing that’s to be said for the people that Bowdoin extends an offer of admission to who then have an actual, take-it-to-the bank choice to make between Bowdoin and other colleges that they’re also actually admitted to.</p>
<p>My point, of course, is not to say that a number is high or low. I don’t believe I have seen other colleges release figures that are comparable to the 28.6% figure that Bowdoin released (because I’ve found Bowdoin’s admissions office to be far and away more transparent about the process than other colleges I’m acquainted with). And, obviously, it would be unfair to suggest that 28.6% should be used relative to the yield numbers that other colleges publish that include the ED admits. So there’s no value judgment from me as to the numbers. I’m just saying that, in terms of usefulness, the RD-only (plus EA, where applicable) yield rate is more informative than the standard number offered up that blends ED and RD numbers. But, yes, the number of ED applicants is another interesting figure. It’s also a separate figure that’s best not commingled with the RD data.</p>
<p>cool</p>
<p>anyone know what the average acceptance rate has been last couple of years?</p>
<p>All you could possibly want to know:</p>
<p>[Common</a> Data Set (Bowdoin, )](<a href=“http://www.bowdoin.edu/ir/data/cds-table.shtml]Common”>Common Data Set | Bowdoin College)</p>
<p>at this rate, in another 4 years the acceptance rate will be close to 10%… and HYP will be like 2%!</p>