@northwesty 's comment above about Powerball got me thinking about what ND’s 2023 Regular Decision pool will look like.
We know from the past 4 full cycles of admissions data (Classes of '19, '20, '21, '22) that the compound annual growth rate in Notre Dame’s total undergraduate applications received is 3.91%. (I start with the data for the entering Class of '19, as that was the first class admitted under the REA / RD process that ND now uses.) Applying that compound annual growth rate to this year’s class, we’d expect the Class of 2023 cycle to result in ND receiving 21,168 applications (+/- a few).
We know from the earlier REA link that ND received 7,334 REA applications for the Class of 2023, so we could estimate that ND will receive 13,834 Regular Decision applications (ie., 13,834 = 21,168 Total Apps minus 7,334 REA Apps). We also know that a total of 1,375 REA applicants were deferred for further consideration, so the total pool of applicants competing for a slot in the “regular pool” is arguably 15,209 (i.e., 13,834 RD + 1,375 REA deferrals). However, not all deferred REA students will take the necessary steps to show “continued interest” with their regional admissions rep. Let’s assume that most applicants who apply REA are relatively educated about college admissions and understand how the “game is played.” For argument’s sake, assume 75% of the REA deferrals continue to show some degree of continued interest. That tells me that roughly 14,865 students would still be fighting for a spot in the Regular cycle.
The questions then become (A) how many total slots is ND looking to fill in an incoming class, and (B) how many of those slots will be filled by the REA acceptances? Assume that ND intends to keep the incoming class flat to last year, so 2,070 enrolled freshman would be the objective from the perspective of the Admissions Office. We know that the yield rate on the Class of '22 REA acceptances was roughly 68%, but that was a higher yield than normal on REA admits. Since the yield rate on the Class of '21 REA acceptances was closer to 64%, let’s just assume ND enrolls, on average, about 66% of its REA acceptances. This would suggest that of the 1,534 REA students who got the good news last Friday evening, 1,012 of them will choose to enroll. That would also tell us that there should be about 1,058 remaining slots still to be filled in the RD cycle.
So, how many of the 14,865 applicants still “alive” in the combined RD + “Continued Interest” Deferred pool does ND need to admit to fill the remaining the 1,058 slots? Once again, reverse engineering the math based on historic admissions data might give us a general sense for the answer. Over the trailing 3 years, ND’s Total Yield (on all applications) has averaged 56.3%. Last year’s yield was actually slightly higher at 57.4%, but using the 3-year average is more predictive for modeling purposes. So if ND once again yields at the trailing 3-year average of 56.3%, that would tell us that ND would accept a total of 3,676 students in order to fill 2,070 freshman seats in the Class of 2023. However, we already know that 1,534 students were accepted in REA, which would suggest that 2,142 students will likely receive good news in the RD+Deferred pool.
By my calc, I believe the acceptance rate in the Regular Decision pool would be about 14.4% (i.e., 2,142 / 14,865). Better than Powerball, and still better than most other Top-20 peer institutions, but still low. All of this is just a long-winded way of saying that @northwesty 's comment about the early pool being the front door to highly selective schools is spot on, and the RD pool is the increasingly smaller back door. For some schools, the RD pool is probably better described as being about the size of a cat door – Vanderbilt’s RD admissions rate, for example, looks to me to be somewhere in the 6-7% range.
I need to quit analyzing this admissions stuff. This is why I now have a B in Spanish IV this quarter. Si Senor!