I am new to this board. I have a D who will be going through all this coming up. What I am trying to understand is why people care so much about Admission Stats/%s? The only thing I can see is that going the ED route might give you a better chance. Well, for us that won’t work. D can’t commit to anyone without knowing the financial picture.
I can see getting into a selective school will be tough. Does it change things if the percentage is 5% or 10%? Sure one might be easier than the other, but in the end the student is just one individual. The student can’t control how many will apply. The student can’t control how many will be accepted. All the student can do is put their best self out there. That is it.
We like to be able to blame someone when things go wrong. Blaming acceptance rates is easy when you don’t get it.
Acceptance rates were naturally going to go down if the university doesn’t increase the class size. Population goes up therefore with stagnant class size acceptance rate will go do. It sucks, but you can’t change it.
I know my D will not get into everywhere she applies. We will look at the best overall fit from all aspects of college to make our decision. Lots of factors will go into the decision. In the end it will all work out.
The admission %age shows, in general, how select the school is. If your entire list is made up of schools <10% admit rates then chances are there will be an unhappy result from the application process.
Just make sure your D has a broad set of schools that includes a Safety that she would be HAPPY to attend, is a sure entry, and you can afford. Anything else is just offering her an option to select a school.
Admittance stats tells you 1) how popular the school is (many apply, few get in) which is a major factor in ranking
2) How likely your student is to get in. So it doesn’t matter 5% vs 10% but if you apply to only 10% schools, you may not get in anywhere. Have some 50%+ options as well.
We found admissions stats very useful in helping our kids form a solid application list with safeties, matches and reaches. They also helped us determine where they would be eligible for the biggest merit. Super helpful when you don’t have unlimited application fee resources.
We never paid any attention to the admissions stats. But for creating a list of reaches, matches and safeties, we did look at the GPA and the test score ranges. Even then, it was to get a very “rough” idea since numbers are a lesser part of the whole equation. As soon as my son’s test scores came within the “range,” although certainly not high, we put a break on trying for higher scores. Once the SAT score, say, hits above 1500, the AdComs aren’t going to compare between the applicant with that score with someone else with, say, 1550. Instead, they’ll look for qualitative aspects of the rest of applications in essays, LOR’s and EC’s.
By the way, I don’t think the college selectivity rate is on a downward trend due to high school population changes. It has more to do with the Common App, fear, college mailings and outreaches and FA. I don’t have any evidences to back it up, but my bet is that the average number of students applying to colleges has increased due to 1) fear that the downward trend of selectivity rates at top schools has engendered; 2) generous FA at certain colleges; 3) knowledge that colleges are looking for geographic diversity as well as socio-economic diversity (FLI – First-generation, Low-income is a hot topic among college conferences nowadays).
They only matter to me in terms of making up a good list of schools to apply to. Every year on here you see kids who are shut out everywhere and can’t believe it - yet they only applied to schools that accept 10% or less every year. Not a great strategy. Our family doesn’t use admit rates to decide if the school is a good fit or if they should apply, but it helps with the big picture.
You could look at the admissions data and see that your kids grades and scores are within the top 25% of the class and think it looks like a likely school to get accepted, but you should be aware that probably a large portion of the applicants will have those statistics - especially ones that have more holistic admissions. My younger son had verbal SATs that put him in the top of any class, but his math scores were in the bottom 25% of all his reaches. The admissions statistics gave us a better idea of what was probably totally out of reach. Interesting he got into every school with a 20% or more acceptance rate, and none where it was lower. (Though one school was lower for regular, he had applied EA.) It’s a small sample size, but I’d created an Excel spreadsheet and had sorted it by acceptance rate.
At the ultra-competitive, meet-full-needs schools, for the majority of applicants you will be able to run the NPC and you will get a great idea as to their eventual FA offers. So if there is one of these schools where your D will be happy to attend, if her stats put her in the top of the mix of typically accepted students, then unless you own a farm or a business, they will make it affordable for her if she gets in. Don’t rule out ED completely if one of these schools would be right for her.
I know all too well how tough it can be as we want to compare schools’ FA offers and simply choose the cheapest. The Early Decision process is inherently biased in favor of wealthy families that can afford to be full pay, or not care about FA because they will get full rides anyway. But the very top schools give great need based aid, and they are generally very clear about it, and very happy to answer all of your questions.
Be sure, though, to think about the cost for all four years. When older siblings graduate, and family size changes, everything else being equal, the cost changes for these schools do vary quite a bit. Things like how much home equity is considered as a family asset matters a lot in comparison.
I’ve used the admission percentages along with the test scores to get a general sense of the likelihood of acceptance at the schools D19 is interested in. The percentages are important because even if the student is at or above the 75th percentile of the test scores, if the school only has an acceptance rate of 10%, the student’s chances of admission is still likely less than 20%. (Schools like MIT and Hamilton have published score bands which suggest that the “bump” for being at or above the 75th percentile is maybe 1.5x – great if the school accepts 50-60% of its applicants, which makes it close to a sure thing at 75-90%, but not so useful at a school with a 10% acceptance rate because it only makes it 15%.
As many here have said, if the student has a school they’re likely to be accepted to (e.g., auto-admit, or acceptance rates of 75% or more), they want to attend, and the student and family can afford, great! If the student is looking at other schools, however, looking at the acceptance rates and the test scores helps the student and family not get their expectations out of line with reality.
I guess what I was trying to get across was that obsessing about 1-2% points if a school is in the 5-10% range for acceptance is not worth worrying about. If a school is highly selective who cares if its rate is 5.5% or 8.9%. Either one is a crapshoot.
I knew pretty much who were selective before doing my research. We will have a nice array of schools to look at.
^ Oh, relative to that question, I agree there’s not much difference between 5.5% and 8.9%, both are essentially lottery tickets for most applicants, most of whom meet the basic qualifications of the school. (Though, to be fair, the school with the 5.5% acceptance rate picks 1 out of every 18 applicants, and the school at 8.9% picks 1 out of every 11, which, well, that’s different.) But I also don’t think most people are distinguishing between schools based on those distinctions. (I’m not, in any case.)
Looking at admission rate in isolation is a gross oversimplification. It’s correlated with chance of a particular student being accepted, but very little precision and many exceptions. For example, College Navigator shows the following acceptance rates:
United States Air Force Academy – 12%
College of the Ozarks – 13%
Bowdoin – 14%
Harvey Mudd – 15%
For any particular student, the chance of admission at these 4 colleges will be all over the map. A relatively weak STEM student is probably going to have a greater disadvantage than suggested by the admit rate at Mudd, although women had a 28% acceptance rate, so women might have a greater advantage than suggested by the overall admit rate at Mudd. Being test optional, a student whose test scores are inconsistently low with the rest of the application might do better at Bowdoin than others with similar admit rates. College of the Ozarks requires more than 90% of the class demonstrates financial need, so students who come from a wealthy families are likely to struggle in admissions, although with an average HS GPA of B+ and a 21/26 ACT range, lower stat applicants would have much better chances that at the others. Students who do poorly on the USAFA fitness assessment are likely to not do well in USAFA admissions, but not at the others.
Particular groups at any particular college may have completely different admit rates than the overall admit rate. For example, San Jose State has a 55% admit rate, but if you are applying to CS; SJS is extremely selective. A student with a 3.95 GPA and 1550 SAT would be below average for the 2018 SJS CS class. However, SJS gives a strong bonus to local applicants, so local applicants wouldn’t need as high stats. Harvard had a ~2% admit rate for regular decision applicants this year, yet according to the lawsuit documents; legacies with a strong academic rating of 1-2 had a 55% admit rate.
The admit rate for a particular student depends on a huge variety of factors that can vary tremendously for different colleges including the including the admission criteria and the applicant pool, among many others.
It is true it is good not to obsess with admissions stats and selectivity does not equal quality. But admissions statistics can give you a sense where you might fall among the applicants and the likelihood of getting in. This is important as it allows you to prioritize applying to a variety of schools, including matches, reaches, and safeties. Otherwise it might be very easy for one applicant to overextend and be shut out of the admissions process.
@gpo613 Oh goodness, is that what you are talking about? Who is stressing over 2 or 3 percentile differences? Of course it doesn’t matter if you are comparing a 5 percent to a 6. However, if you are looking admission in tiers it can help a lot.
For example, we found that our two oldest had no trouble getting into any school with a 30 percent or higher acceptance rate and private schools with 50 percent or higher gave a ton of merit money to make it match or close to our EFC even if not full need schools. Under 30 percent was a bit of a crapshoot and seems to be that way for pretty much all the high performers we know of. There can be a lot of surprises under the 30 mark. Knowing that is super helpful when making lists and looking for finances. Thinking you have a better chance because one school is 2 percentage points higher acceptance rate is just asking for disappointment.
I also agree that the admission percentage is only a barometer and one data point. As many have pointed out and there are posts analyzing the statistical probability of applying to all low percentage admissions colleges notincrease your changes of being admitted to one. I really do think in this day and age have a more diverse short-list is the way to go,
I think admission percentage is a very useful stat when trying to determine if a school is a safety, match, or reach. As other posters have noted, having stats at the 75% mark at a school with a 40% admission rate is a lot different than having stats at the 75% mark at a school with a 10% admission rate. Even when you are talking about schools with extremely low admission rates, it is something to consider. Every year, the local public high school lists the colleges to which the graduating class have been accepted. It is much more common to see Cornell on that list than HYP.
It’d be interesting to approach from the other end, i.e., the actual results of multiple applications of both declared and undeclared majors. Looking at from this other end, too, there’s NO WAY that the selectivity rate correlates with the probability with enough accuracy to use the selectivity rate as a good and reliable indicator of the probability of being admitted. I’m not of course talking about an applicant who can be competitive with very low selectivity rate schools with those schools with 30%+ selectivity rates.
My son, for example, applied to several research universities and several LAC’s, undeclared. His results showed about the same number of acceptances to single-digit selectivity schools and rejections from double-digit schools.
And here’s where even this “other end” results don’t really help. The following individual and institutional factors, I believe, strongly influenced my son’s outcomes:
He paid greater attention and care with essays to his top choices and less with those he basically considered a set of backup schools (double-digit selectivity rate). He began his applications with his top choice schools first and by the time he got to the backups, he ran out of energy with so much other stuff he had to do.
As a violinist, he submitted the arts supplement to his top choices but not to those back-up schools.
Those backup schools aren’t as “holistic” in their admissions policies; they’re STEM strong schools with greater emphasis on the quantitative side of the application.
As soon as the admissions results started coming in, one thing I immediately noticed was that my son had better results with those top choices of his and equally negative results with those he considered backup schools.
The point is that there are so many individual AND institutional factors in play that trying to look at the correlation between the selectivity rate and the probability of admissions is an exercise in futility. I don’t believe that selectivity is necessarily an indicator that an applicant will have a harder time being admitted. Nor do I believe that those schools with the lowest selectivity are better than when their selectivity was higher just a few years ago. Harvard and Staford appear to me to be about the same as when they were, say, a decade ago. Rather, low selectivity is more an accurate indicator that it’s harder on the poor AdComs. Lower selectivity simply means there are more applicants, period, to make these AdCom’s lives more miserable. The seasoned AdComs, however, will know how to wade through the pile to come up with the same number of students they desire. As I stated in my earlier post, I’d much rather look at the applicant’s scores, find those schools within the mid to upper, rough range, study the applicant-to-institutional fit to narrow the list down, apply, and relax or pray, whichever suits your mental style of dealing with these things.
DS1 applied to a safety via a priority application where they let you know within three weeks of getting first quarter grades. That application went out first. Then he applied to MIT and recycled all his MIT essays with minor tweaks. Applied EA where he could (MIT and Caltech). Got into Harvard (regular not SCEA, Carnegie-Mellon (only applied for CS) and another safety. So he got into two schools with high admissions rates and half the schools with low ones.
Younger son applied in the order applications were due. So early to Chicago and Georgetown. Then his safety. Then various super reaches. He applied to the school he ended up applying to last because he wanted to spend spring break having fun with their optional essay. In the end got into his safety, Chicago (which is definitely easier EA) and the second tier of selectivity for the rest. For him, his grades and scores were on the border - he put a lot of effort into essays and I think his teachers really went to bat for him as well.
I appreciate your confidence. But one thing you may want to consider is that you are looking at historical data, not future data (obviously) when looking at statistics. I realize it’s all you can do, but just don’t set yourself up to be blindsided as many were this year. My 2 cents would be to apply EA to most schools (including several safties where your student is beyond the 75th percentile) so that you have something in your back pocket if other choices fall through. Here are a couple of examples from the 2018 cycle that caught people off guard:
Virginia Tech had a historical acceptance rate of 70% until it dropped it to 56% for the fall of 2018. No one saw that coming and many very qualified kids were rejected.
Florida State had applications exceed 50,000 (compared with 41K the prior year). Stats were so high that some students that would have received OOS tuition waivers in prior years were flat out rejected.