anyone know the freshman class profile for the newly admitted class of 2020? If this isn’t released yet when will it be?
2020 hasn’t been released. Here is the 2019 class profile:
an update i emailed admissions and this years acceptance rate was about 25.5%
@andrewmcdona “i emailed admissions and this years acceptance rate was about 25.5%”
Is that the admission rate for regular admissions only, or does it include ED1 and ED2?
all she said was that there was a little over 13400 applicants and they admitted about 25.5%. sounds like it includes ED. @Much2learn
Okay, so if they admitted the same 3,905 students as last year (see link in post #1) but received 13,400 applications, the acceptance rate would be 29% for the class of 2020. If they only admitted 25.5% of the 13,400 applicants, that would only be 3,417 students, which is 488 fewer admits than last year.
That 488 fewer admits than last year suggests to me that either they admitted a higher number of students via ED1 and ED2, or they overenrolled last year and decided to extend fewer offers and then take more students from the wait list (it is also possible that both of these are true).
they have over enrolled the last two years. that probably it. @Much2learn
I believe they over enrolled last year, so they likely are shooting for a smaller class of 2020…their yield is about 32%, so 488 fewer admits would yield 156 fewer student to the class… 1,093 in class of 2020 compared to 1,250 class of 2019…sounds like a lot for an class that size. Not sure the right answer, but my guess is that 25.5% is RD and 29% is overall (including ED 1,2).
if the 13400 applicant number she told me includes ED then ED should be factored into in that. @LehighHawkDad
Hers an article from last December discussing their goals for this year’s acceptance.
http://thebrownandwhite.com/2015/11/02/admissions-changes-affect-acceptance-rates/
They wanted to increase applications by five percent which they have achieved. The freshman class has been over enrolled for the last two years, so I think the trend is for Lehigh to have higher enrollment rates.
@lehighhawkdad “their yield is about 32%, so 488 fewer admits would yield 156 fewer student to the class… 1,093 in class of 2020 compared to 1,250 class of 2019…sounds like a lot for an class that size.”
Right, but say they admitted 100 more ED. That would increase the total by 68 students to 1161. That would make the class a little smaller but close to the right size. Then they could fill in any gap from the waitlist. That would imply that they may have actually reduced the pre-waitlist admit rate may actually be 25.5%.
If I were them I would want the rate under 30%, if possible, because in some rankings that is the dividing line for Highly Selective or Most Selective or whatever the term is. If that makes the school more attractive to some to students during their search and selection process, then it is helpful to Lehigh admissions.
@Much2learn : I agree with everything you said. In the article referenced by sparkyleo, the admisions office, “… is hoping that the acceptance rate will fall below 30 percent, as Lehigh will look better as an institution if it has a lower acceptance rate…If the acceptance rate does go below 30 percent, admission into Lehigh will become much more competitive.” We will know in time whether 25.5 or 29% is the final number, but I was just guessing 29 since it gets to the sub 30% threshold.
Sadly, you are correct about the strategic goals of getting below 30%, making the school look ‘more attractive.’ This trend forces all schools to engage in admissions practices that serve the institutional interests but (in my view) are not positive for high school seniors. Frank Bruni wrote a brilliant spoof on this in the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/30/opinion/college-admissions-shocker.html?_r=0
Looks like the Brown and White published the answer…appears that 25.5% indeed was the overall admit rate…must be expecting higher yield based on last 2 years of over enrollment.
http://thebrownandwhite.com/2016/04/27/lehigh-ranking-little-effect/
It does not see to me that the ranking dropping from #40 to #47 is a big deal for an educated consumer, but a continued drop could begin to have a real impact. It is too bad that colleges have to play this game, but unless you are Harvard, Princeton or Penn, it seems that it has become a fact of life. Unfortunately, the fiction created by the rankings can become real, if parents and students treat it like it’s real.
In looking at the article you posted, it seems to me that it should not be that difficult or expensive for Lehigh to improve a little on almost every metric in the rankings. For example, how hard can it be to nudge up the percent of alumni giving from the current level of 22-24%? They just need to put a bit more effort into alumni outreach and relations and have more students calling alums. I think even if an alum only gives $10 or $20 it counts, so how hard can it be to raise that number to 1/3 of alumni giving something?
Improving graduation rates can be done by the university being quicker to identify students who are struggling and helping them get back on track before the student is hopelessly lost. Closer monitoring of class and recitation attendance and grades is not very expensive. Even paying students to tutor other students is not very expensive. Nudging the graduation rate up from 87% in 6 years to say 89% should be achievable.
Graduation and retention seem like it is more a matter of understanding who votes, and lobbying/marketing to them about how great the school is. Pretty sure that is what Northeastern does. It has gotten them a long way, and now they are attracting many more good students.
The acceptance rate is lower but are the average stats higher for admitted students? I remember Bucknell’s applicants rised from 7000 to 10000 but the average stats remain about the same.
lehigh only publishes stats like that for the enrolled students, not all who were admitted. @class0f2017
@andrewmccdona I think that is more accurate and those numbers are probably lower than the average admitted stats. Either way, I am still curious to see Lehigh’s enrolled student’s stats in terms of GPA, SAT, etc for this year unless it was already posted and I missed it. A lower acceptance rate doesn’t mean it is harder to get into if the average stats are still the same.
@classOF2017 I think you’ve got it wrong. You state (above) “A lower acceptance rate doesn’t mean it is harder to get into if the average stats are still the same.”
How does that work? If average applicant stats remain the same, fewer slots (admission offers) means that at the margin some - those with the minimum standards for acceptance - won’t get in. Doesn’t that describes a school that is more difficult to get into?
That doesn’t apply, of course, to individuals with superior stats. But number of applicants describes demand and admission offers represents supply. When supply shrinks and demand stays the same or goes up…you get it! Average stats will increase.
@Lehighdad If the average stats for admitted students is the same then that means it’s not any harder to get in. It just means there were more applicants with lower stats. Just as an example look at Bucknell’s class of 2018 and 2019 profiles. The number of applicants increased from 7000 to 10000 and the acceptance rate fell by 5% but the average stats remained the same.
@classOF2017 I’ve got this bias in that I do believe in supply and demand. So let’s assume all applicants have the exact same stats. If there are more applications for fewer slots, it will be difficult to explain to those denied admission that it is hasn’t gotten more difficult to get in.
Bucknell’s average stats may not have gone up…that’s possible. But I guarantee there were applicants scratching their heads as to why they didn’t get in. That Bucknell’s average stats didn’t go up, that feels like an anomaly. But this website is a forum for among other things pointing out the anomalies that occur all the time when it comes to college admissions.