College Admissions Statistics Class of 2020: Early Decision & Early Action Acceptance Rates

Applying to College
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The list was my rough cut at it based on both the USNWR list and the availability of data from a particular school. For example, I think Michigan is clearly on anyone’s list of top 25 schools, but they do not publish any admissions data, so it was pointless to put them on my list. It’s just a way to organize the data and generate discussion.

As for the yield, I’ve called it an “estimate” because actually very few schools publish a current list of 2020 class size. In some cases I’ve used class of 2019 class size, in other cases it was the stated target class size (i.e., what the admissions office told the school newspaper their class size was back in May), and now the actual enrollment numbers are starting to trickle in. They’re all over the place, so it’s best to just call it an estimate. If you have better numbers for a particular school feel free to share.

462

So if my quick scan is correct if the usnwr is the ranking basis you then subtracted Emory, USC and UCLA. Then added Tufts, UVA?

Did you consider ranking schools by number of acceptances (lowest to highest). You did popularity (number of applications). Acceptances are relevant too.

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Total Acceptances:

1.Caltech 541
2.MIT 1485
3.Princeton 1894
4.Yale 1972
5.Harvard 2106
6.Stanford 2114
7.Dartmouth 2176
8.Columbia 2193
9.University of Chicago 2482
10.Rice 2784
11.Tufts 2831
12.Brown 2919
13.Johns Hopkins 3123
14.Duke 3314
15.Vanderbilt 3326
16.Notre Dame 3565
17.Penn 3661
18.Northwestern 3751
19.Georgetown 4168
20.Washington University in St. Louis 4729
21.Carnegie Mellon University 5270
22.Cornell 6277
23.UVA 9358
24.UC-Berkeley 12,226

464

Why are # of acceptances relevant? Isn’t that 100% a factor of the school’s size as opposed to quality or popularity.?

465

Aren’t acceptances the goal for a student?

Cornell accepts more students than HYP combined.

Popularity can be measured in two ways. Applications and yield. With the latter illustrating brand strength.

466

Interesting. Hadn’t focussed on how small CalTech is. That might help explain why it always seems to top the median SAT scores list.

467

Although I know that certain people hate this chart (read: UChicago fans), I feel compelled to update it with the newest data.

**Ranked Data +Yield
Class of 2020: Ivies + MIT, Stanford

Total Applications:**
1.Cornell 44,966
2.Stanford 43,977
3.Harvard 39,041
4.Penn 38,918
5.Columbia 36,292
6.Brown 32,390
7.Yale 31,349
8.Princeton 29,303
9.Dartmouth 20,675
0.MIT 19,020

RD acceptance rate:
1.Harvard RD 1188 out of 32,868 (3.6%)
2.Stanford RD 1369 out of 36,175 (3.8%)
3.Yale RD 1177 out of 26,793 (4.4%)
4.Princeton RD 1109 out of 25,074 (4.4%)
5.Columbia ED/RD 2193 out of 36,292 (6.0%)
6.Penn RD 2326 out of 33,156 (7.0%)
7.MIT RD 829 out of 11,253 (7.4%)
8.Brown RD 2250 out of 29,360 (7.7%)
9.Dartmouth RD 1682 out of 18748 (9.0%)
0.Cornell RD 4939 out of 40084 (12.3%)

Early acceptance rate:
1.MIT EA 656 out of 7767 (8.4%)
2.Stanford REA 745 out of 7822 (9.5%)
3.Harvard SCEA 918 out of 6173 (14.9%)
4.Yale SCEA 795 out of 4662 (17.1%)
5.Princeton SCEA 785 out of 4229 (18.6%)
6.Brown ED 669 out of 3030 (22.1%)
7.Penn ED 1335 out of 5762 (23.2%)
8.Dartmouth ED 494 out of 1927 (25.6%)
9.Cornell ED 1338 out of 4882 (27.4%)
0.Columbia ED (no data)

Total Acceptance Rate:
1.Stanford 2114 out of 43,977 (4.8%)
2.Harvard 2106 out of 39,041 (5.4%)
3.Columbia 2193 out of 36,292 (6.0%)
4.Yale 1972 out of 31,349 (6.3%)
5.Princeton 1894 out of 29,303 (6.4%)
6.MIT 1485 out of 19,020 (7.8%)
7.Brown 2919 out of 32,390 (9.0%)
8.Penn 3661 out of 38,918 (9.4%)
9.Dartmouth 2176 out of 20,675 (10.5%)
0.Cornell 6277 out of 44,966 (14.0%)

Yield (based on estimated class size):
1.Stanford 82.8% (1750)
2.Harvard 79.2% (1667)
3.MIT 75.4% (1120)
4.Princeton 69.2% (1310)
5.Yale 69.0% (1360)
6.Penn 66.8% (2445)
7.Columbia 63.8% (1400)
8.Brown 56.9% (1660)
9.Dartmouth 54.0%(1175)
0.Cornell 52.2% (3275)

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@ClarinetDad16 Yes, but the acceptance rate is the relevant stat for students looking to their likelihood of acceptance, not the total acceptances. One school may accepts 5,000 students and another accepts 500, but the rate for the 5K school is 5% and the rate for the 500 school is 50%. If you looked at the acceptance data and not the rate you would have a very skewed perspective.

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Just exclude Columbia on the same grounds that you’ve excluded Chicago (failure to disaggregate early and regular admissions) and all will be well, LOL!

470

@citivas if your kid is trying for a special program is it easier to fight for the one spot open or one of six?

471

@DeepBlue86, I believe that Harvard takes in more athletes than Stanford. Not offering scholarships actually means that it’s both cheaper for them to sponsor more sports and they have to take in more athletes (because there is little cost to a student from dropping a sport). Take a look at the sizes of the Harvard and Stanford football recruiting classes, for instance.

472

@ClarinetDad16 I don’t want to belabor this, but if the issue is admission to a special program within a school, I still don’t see how the overall raw # of acceptances average the rate informs that since it doesn’t take any specific programs into account.

473

I’m having some trouble finding data, but some readily-available information suggests you’re right, @PurpleTitan. Harvard’s website says they field 42 varsity teams and have 1,200 students competing in intercollegiate sports; Stanford’s numbers are 36 and 900 (but with 300 athletic scholarships, which Harvard doesn’t offer). It looks to me like Stanford picks their spots better (e.g., in women’s swimming, as we’re seeing in the Olympics this week with Katie Ledecky, Maya DiRado and Simone Manuel) and, as you say, uses athletic scholarships to avoid over-recruiting.

474

@citivas so if a school was small and only generally took one kid from your HS (but had a 20% acceptance rate) and another larger school took on average 5 kids from your school (but had a 12% acceptance rate), which would be a harder admit from your school?

475

So Stanford offers scholarships to a third of their recruited athletes? Is there information as to how much they offer? Is it uniform at all?

476

@PurpleTitan @DeepBlue86 I think you’re comparing apples to oranges. Even though Harvard fields more varsity sports teams than Stanford, the number of recruited athletes is much less. I believe the Ivy League limits schools to ~230 recruited athletes per school, and even then the schools don’t use all those slots because they are generally able to fill their teams with walk-ons rather than recruits. A “recruit” means different things to Stanford and Harvard but I think the rough comparison is that Stanford has around 300 recruited scholarship athletes per class and Harvard has around 200 recruited athletes. Whether Harvard loosens its admissions standards for a larger slice of the varsity athletes than Stanford does because it doesn’t offer scholarships is an interesting question, but I don’t think we have any evidence to support it one way or another.

477

@spayurpets, where do you get the info on the limit on recruited Ivy League athletes? I’ve never heard of such a thing. And how would that even be enforced (considering that no Ivy may offer athletic scholarships)?

@sbjdorlo, don’t know if that is the total number of Stanford athletes who get scholarships or total Stanford athletic scholarships. Note that outside of a few sports, scholarships can be split many ways. So the money for 2 full-ride scholarships in fencing could be spread over 20 students (as an example).

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@spayurpets, OK, I see, there are recruited athletes (200+, and only in Ivy sports), though if the adcom wanted to help out various sports teams, they’d admit nonrecruited student-athletes who were good in a sport or several.

479

The Stanford website says “300 athletic scholarships are awarded each year” (http://admission.stanford.edu/student/athletics/). Not sure whether that means 300 individuals in a class, 300 individuals spread across the university or 300 scholarships subdivided among who knows how many individuals. At the Ivies, as @spayurpets says, there are something like 200 recruited athletes in each class, none of whom is specifically on an athletic scholarship. I can certainly imagine you’d be under a lot more pressure to stick to your sport if doing so meant that the school was going to continue to pay your freight, but I have no idea if it works that way at Stanford.

480

I don’t want to be nosy and ask my friend, but her son was recruited by Stanford for his sport (not one of the “big” sports like football, but who knows? It might be very popular at Stanford). I’m very curious as to whether he got a scholarship or not.