I can see two reasons for a combination of a high acceptance rate plus a high average GPA.
One reason as others have noted is that GPA is calculated based on some scale other than A=4.0 and B=3.0.
The other reason is that some schools, particularly outside the US, have very predictable admissions based on GPA. If you are not going to get accepted then you just do not apply. Actually, very predictable admissions based on anything can create a high acceptance rate for the same reason.
To me a university with an acceptance rate lower than 10% still seems very odd.
Why is that? Capacity is relatively fixed over the time frame of a few years and schools can’t stop people from applying. If a school gets flooded with applications, and only space for <10% of those applicants, there aren’t many options.
Test Optional, and an apparently evolving “I need to apply to more schools” mindset has caused application counts to explode. But since the actual number of enrolled students does not also grow, there’s not a commensurate capacity increase.
I agree that Elon’s data is just a bizarre outlier - who knows what they do to come up with it. 1235 ~median SAT and almost half the student not in the top quarter of their high school class does not logically lead to a 4.04 average GPA in any conventional GPA calculation. Only 52% in the top quarter and 53.6% with a GPA greater than 4.0 means at least some students had a 4.0 but weren’t in the top quarter of their class.
exactly the point and thanks! You added in several questions that are relevant to the broad question, what explains this?
bad data aside (and in no way does this mean I dismiss this point-- clearly many of the pages on the internet are populated by automatic data harvesting and not written by humans except a template)…
hypothetically if we take the examples provided at face value the only thing that I can think of is some schools are the target of “backup choice” in disproportionately great numbers by smart kids and disproportionately rarely a first choice. I don’t buy that though. It doesn’t seem like it would be possible for such a trend like that to be so drastic.
I wonder what it could be on the side of the admissions that would produce that (in this hypothetical world where the data corruption isn’t present)
Some applicant pools are disproportionately drawn from private schools or a few highly competitive and highly affluent public schools. In some schools, the top 50% may be attending T20 colleges, which would explain lower class rank of those applying to Elon, for example. Particularly true at a college such as Elon where tuition is substantially lower than peers, but very little financial aid is available. Accordingly, it is a very appealing choice for upper middle class families not otherwise eligible for need-based aid who are hoping to hold costs at $50k per year, rather than the $70 more prevalent elsewhere.
It just numbers. Harvard 57000 applicants for 2000 slots Acceptance rate less than 4%. Yield of 85%
NYU had 100000 applicants 12.5% admit rate yield of 51% https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■/blog/class-of-2025-yield-rate
My S21 school FSU last year 60000 plus applicants 36% admit rate 34% yield This year numbers not out but 70000 applicants by final deadline
Is it possible that’s it just marketing? I mean, perhaps Colgate has made a lot more effort (invested more advertising dollars?) than Sara Lawrence to get their name out so that more kids apply (and therefore they have more kids to reject, lowering their acceptance rate)? This has definitely been a practice at some other schools, like Northeastern, to boost their USNWR ranking. I was familiar with Gonzaga growing up (I’m originally from WA), but I don’t think I’d ever heard of Elon until I moved to the East Coast (at age 30) and until a few months ago hadn’t heard of St. Louis U, Lewis & Clark, or Creighton (I’m now much older than 30, lol).
The most common reason for a high acceptance rate with high GPA is probably using a weighted GPA with a lot of weight given for honors/AP/… For, example a college might report a (weighted) GPA of 4.0 in the CDS, when the UW GPA is 3.5.
Elon was mentioned as the college with the largest discrepancy between acceptance rate and GPA, so I’ll use that as an example, Elon reports an average GPA of 4.04, which should be a strong clue that is weighted. The distribution is also suspicious, which is listed below:
53% have 4.0
12% have 3.75-4.0
11% have 3.5-3.75
10% have 3.25-3.5
7% have 3.0 to 3.25
6% have 2.5 to 3.0
<1% have below 2.5
In order for the listed distribution to be true and the average GPA to be 4.04, then the 4.0 GPA kids need to have an average GPA of approximately 4.65 – far above 4.0. This suggest that Elon may be using a weighted GPA system where the maximum is 5.0, However Elon’s class profile page at First-year Class Profile | Undergraduate Admissions | Elon University mentions that honors fellows at Elon average a 5.01 GPA, implying the maximum GPA is above 5.0. Even if we assume a 5.0 GPA maximum – 4.04/5.0 has a completely different meaning from 4.04/4.0.
If the OP lists the name of the college, then we can do a similar review for that college.
From what I can find Elon is weighting AP IB DE AICE 2 points and Honors 1 point
Double from what most colleges that recalculate GPA do to take in account rigor
Elon website has no information on what classes are included in GPA
Only info is on Old CC boards. This makes sense its the only way they can show a GPA higher than 5
For comparison FSU (S21 School) on their website states how they recalculate GPA
Calculation of High School Academic GPA
Only the academic core subjects will be used in the calculation of the grade point average for admission purposes. We do not use the GPAs listed on the high school transcript or report card. Grades of “C” or better in dual enrollment, AICE, AP, and IB coursework will be weighted and receive one point in the recalculation; grade of “C” or better in honors, pre-AICE, pre-AP, and pre-IB coursework will receive one half point. For repeated courses, we will use all attempts in the recalculation.
Elon Class of 2024 stats 15306 apps 10975 admits 1587 enrolled about a 15% yield
