<p>"For the second year in a row, Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah is the most popular national university in America among applicants, according to an analysis of yield (the percentage of students accepted to a school who opt to attend) by U.S.News & World Report. BYU dropped four spots to 75th in U.S. News's 2011 rankings of national universities, which are research-oriented institutions that offer degrees of all levels. That did not deter admitted students from choosing the school--76.9 percent of accepted students enrolled in fall 2009. "</p>
<p>Harvard had the next highest yield at 76.5 followed by Stanford. The US Naval Academy topped its category with an 85.5% yield.</p>
<p>Makes sense only people who will enroll there apply there.</p>
<p>This is very different from being the “nation’s most popular univeristy,” I would imagine that statistic would look like something like highest number of applicants out of any university.</p>
<p>Agreed–should be re-titled: “Highest yield university re people who applied there.” Actually, the title is pretty dumb…universities that appeal to certain subsets of applicants skew the numbers.</p>
<p>I still can’t figure out why they call this a metric of popularity. I guess they can get away from it since people only care about the general rankings.</p>
<p>@ellemenope, I think BYU’s reputation in general is very high, not just among Mormons. If you can agree to live by the social rules, you can get a great education dirt cheap even if you aren’t a Mormon (though the downside is everyone will assume you are a Mormon because you went to BYU, and then you have to deal with people’s stereotypes and prejudices against Mormons. And they will ask you dumb questions.)</p>
<p>I think UCLA still receives the most applicants which in my mind would make it the ‘most popular’ (to apply to).</p>
<p>I don’t think BYU is in any way similar in the area of applicants->accepted->admitted to most universities because of the LDS affiliation and huge ‘built-in population’ who have it as pretty much the only U they want to go to and have a pretty good shot of acceptance. I’m not taking anything away from BYU but I don’t think the stat is really relevant when trying to compare it to almost any other U. It’s pretty unique in this area.</p>
<p>I got a lot of friends that went to BYU and that ALL just loved it. It is very popular among its students and alumni - that is for sure. It is a well regarded university, as well.</p>
<p>BYU gets about 10,000 applications/year, by the way, and accepts 70% of them. So for lots of applicants it’s a sure thing, and they don’t apply anywhere else.</p>
<p>Smithie: I don’t think BYU’s reputation is “very high” among non-Mormons, at least among non-Mormons who don’t live in Utah. I don’t think that it’s awful, either, but “great education dirt cheap” sounds like an overstatement.</p>
<p>BYU is not even close to being our nation’s most popular university considering the vast majority of its students are Mormons and Mormons make up a small percentage Americans. </p>
<p>When I lived on the west coast people seemed to regard BYU well, on the same level as, say, ASU. On the gulf and east coasts? It’s simply known as the Mormon college and not held in very high regard academically.</p>
<p>The social scene is awesome…or awful, depending on your outlook.</p>
<p>We are not allowed to link to youtube here so I’ll link to a newspaper article with a link to the very funny parody (by an actual BYU student musical comedy group):</p>
<p>I think it depends on what you are looking for.
If you want to attend school where you are surrounded by others who share your background, then yes it is quite popular, but if you want to work in a field where BYU grads are a small %, then you may find that going to a another school, even quite a secular one gives you a stronger advantage.</p>
<p>I’m with Pizzagirl. If the resume of a BYU grad crossed my desk, I’d assume the person was Mormon and that’s about it. I don’t think of BYU as a particularly rigorous school. Maybe I’m wrong and it is, but it doesn’t have that reputation among the people I know.</p>
<p>BYU where I live is golden. They have a huge alumni network, and they REALLY network. A BYU degree out here will get you far further than an Ivy one, 'cause the Ivy kids never come back, and they have no network to speak of. The result is that many top execs are BYU grads. </p>
<p>As for the education? Since I can’t vouch for the quality of Ivy educations either (though I have stories from my d. who teaches at one), I certainly can’t compare. But I’ve never heard a BYU grad complain about educational quality.</p>
<p>(And yes, yield matters. High yield almost always means happy students. Though I expect the yield at the University of Phoenix may be higher.)</p>
<p>BYU is a very rigorous school. I am familiar with a department at BYU and the same department at top 5 school and there is no difference between the quality and rigor of the classes. Graduates of BYU are accepted into top graduate programs every year. For a student who is a bit religious (not necessarily Mormon) and conservative it could be a good option.</p>