College Admissions Statistics Class of 2021: Early and Regular Decision Acceptance Rates

https://fordhamram.com/2017/01/25/early-action-applications-break-records/

Here’s an article about UVA’s Early Action class. http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2017/01/uva-receives-record-number-of-early-action-applications (Omitted the graphics which don’t copy well, so go to the article to view.)

[quote]
U.Va. receives record number of early action applications
Admissions accepts 29 percent of applicants

University admissions received a record number of 20,446 early action applications for the Class of 2021 — a 24 percent increase from last year’s early applicant pool.

About 29 percent of those who applied to early action this year were accepted, roughly the same as last year, which had a 31 percent early acceptance rate.

Nearly 27 percent, or 5,458, of Class of 2021 applicants were deferred. These numbers are subject to change due to withdrawals.

Those deferred will be considered again and could potentially be offered acceptance when the University announces its regular admissions decisions in March.

Of the 20,446 that applied, only 5,278 were Virginians, with the rest of applicants coming from out-of-state students. In-state applicants had a 47 percent acceptance rate, compared to a much lower acceptance rate of 22 percent for out-of-state applicants.

Compared to early actions decisions last year, 50 percent of in-state applicants received offers of early admission, while only 24 percent of out-of-state applicants were offered spots in the Class of 2020.


The College of Arts and Sciences held an acceptance rate of 29 percent. The Architecture, Curry, Engineering and Nursing schools had acceptance rates of 41 percent, 24 percent, 31 percent and 15 percent, respectively.

Early action applicants came from over 65 different countries across the world, with nearly 95 percent of accepted applicants being ranked in the top 10 percent of their class.

According to Assoc. Dean Jeannine Lalonde’s “Notes from Peabody” admissions blog, admitted early action applicants will learn if they were also accepted into the Echols, Rodman and College Science Scholars programs “in the coming days.”

Dean of Admissions Gregory W. Roberts was unavailable for comment before press time.

Adding Fordham EA/ED and correcting the ordering:

MIT EA 657 out of 8394 (7.8%) (def=69.7%, rej=22.4%)
Georgetown EA 931 out of 7822 (11.9%)(def=88.1%)
Boston University ED2 ~274 out of 2039 (~13.4%)
Harvard SCEA 938 out of 6473 (14.5%)
Princeton SCEA 770 out of 5003 (15.4%)
Yale SCEA 871 out of 5086 (17.1%) (def=52.7%, rej=28.6%)
Rice ED 329 out of 1604 (20.5%)
NYU ED (all campuses) 1885 out of ~9000 (~20.9%)
Brown ED 695 out of 3170 (21.9%)(def=60%, rej=18%)
Georgia Tech EA (OOS) ~2300 out of 11,515 (~21%)
Penn ED 1354 out of 6147 (22.0%)
UVA EA (OOS) 3339 out of 14,968 (22.3%)
Carnegie Mellon ED 330 out of 1375 (24.0%)
Notre Dame REA 1470 out of 6020 (24.4%) (893 def=14.8%)
Duke ED 861 out of 3516 (24.5%)(def,671=19.1%)
Cornell ED ~1379 out of 5384 (25.6%)(def=20.9%, rej=53.5%)
Northwestern ED ~963 out of 3736 (~25.7%)
Dartmouth ED 555 out of 1999 (27.8%)
Georgia Tech EA (IS/OOS) 4380 out of 15,715 (27.9%)
Boston University ED1/ED2 ~1190 out of 4181 (~28.5%)
UVA EA (IS/OOS) 5914 out of 20,446 (28.9%)(def,5458=26.7%; rej,9074=44.4%)
Tulane EA 6480 out of 22,256 (29.1%)
Tufts ED1/ED2 ~675 out of 2310 (~29.2%)
Johns Hopkins ED 591 out of 1934 (30.6%)
Emory ED 474 out of 1493 (31.7%)
Boston College EA ~2900 out of 9000 (~33%)(def,3500=38.9%, rej,2500=27.8%)
Williams ED 257 out of 728 (35.3%)
Boston University ED1 916 out of 2142 (42.8%)
UVA EA (IS) 2575 out of 5278 (48.8%)
Fordham EA 9812 out of 19,859 (49.4%)
Georgia Tech EA (IS) ~2080 out of 4200 (~49%)
Middlebury ED1 343 out of 673 (51.0%) (def,60=8.9%, rej,270=40.1%)
William & Mary ED 528 out of 1023 (51.6%)
University of Georgia EA 8059 out of 15,614 (51.6%)
Fordham ED 156 out of 293 (53.2%)

Any update from UNC? I was rejected OOS and am very interested to see what the percentage for IS vs OOS was.

Nothing so far on UNC, but it was around this time last year that they put out a news release so it may come out soon.

As of the end of January, there were 28 schools that disclosed their EA/ED stats. At the same time last year, there were 22. The difference is: (-Stanford), (-Davidson), +BU, +Rice, +NYU, +Carnegie Mellon, +Tulane, +Emory, +Fordham, +William & Mary. The trend this year is definitely more schools disclosing and/or more fulsome disclosure, with the exception of Stanford.

Dear spayurpets, I know how thorough you are, but I do wonder a bit about the numbers you posted for Rice that came from the Washington Post. I’m presently a freshman at Rice, and not one word has been published or spoken by anyone at Rice about this year’s early decision stats. If they had been released they would have been published in the Rice Thresher or the Rice website but there is nothing I know of. Also, I asked an admission official if any admission stats had been released and he said no. And while the numbers you recorded from the WP for this year’s early decision are not that different from last year’s, it would be interesting to know where the WP got their numbers. I just thought I would share my skepticism, in light of the fact that I rarely see you record stats unless they come from a university press release. Take care.

@Maximilias it’s a good point, I don’t usually post numbers for a school where I just get a statement by a student that they “heard” this from an admissions officer or read it in their acceptance letter. But usually you can quickly confirm it from a published source. But in this case, the Washington Post is an actual newspaper with journalistic editorial standards for publication (certainly higher standards than I have!). I have to believe that they get this from a reliable fact-checkable source, so we are probably safe to post those numbers. I guess we’ll find out how accurate it will be when Rice publishes their stats but all I can do is expressly source my material and let people make their own decision on whether to rely on it or not. I think your caveats should be taken into consideration when students rely on the Rice data.

I’m also pretty sure that Rice is already aware that the Post has their numbers out on their site (students aren’t shy about calling the AO and asking to confirm or asking at an admissions session so that’s an early warning system), and if they were off there would be some corrective action. I myself have gotten messages or admonitions from AOs because of some data error I made in what I posted, so don’t assume that schools aren’t constantly monitoring the web to make sure their data is getting out and stated accurately.

@spayurpets I think your stats for NYU is a little off. The 9000 is including both ED1 and ED2, and ED2 decisions haven’t been released yet.

Dear spayurpets, when it comes to collecting, assessing and reporting college admissions data, you may actually have higher standards than the Washington Post. It will be interesting to see how the WP numbers compare with those Rice finally publishes. For some reason, Rice is very quiet about admissions stats. And I think you’re probably correct in assuming that if the WP were off, Rice would likely respond with corrective measures. Thanks. Take care.

I did look at the Washington Post again, and they had a general statement that their sources were published articles and interviews with admissions offices. It sounds possible that they spoke to someone at Rice who provided the numbers.

@futurenyus Hmm, it looks like you may be right, that the NYU number might include the ED2 applications so it is overstating the ED acceptance rate. I don’t have any additional information that would tell me the actual ED1 acceptance rate so I might have to just delete the NYU number.

@spayurpets Has anyone seen whether U Miami publishes any stats on their ED and EA acceptances? Thanks!

GUYS HELP!!! I got accepted to Stern ed 2021 and I currently my grades are A A A C C B B do you think I’ll get RESCINDED??? I applied with a 3.75 GPA I take 4 APS and the 2 Cs are in AP GOV and AP STATS

^ No, you should be fine. Maybe you should start studying harder to get those C’s up to B’s? Those courses are just not that hard. Have you asked your teacher what you need to do to get a B for the year?

Here’s an article confirming the ED data on William & Mary that was reported by the Washington Post and also giving some new details on the RD applicant pool:
http://www.wm.edu/news/stories/2017/applications-for-class-of-2021-roll-into-wm.php

[quote]
Applications for Class of 2021 roll into W&M

Demand remains high for a William & Mary education, as apparent by the size of this year’s undergraduate applicant pool.

In addition to receiving 3.7 percent more applications from prospective freshmen than last year, the university saw a record number of in-state applications.

During the latest admissions cycle, William & Mary received approximately 14,900 applications, with just over 6,000 of those from in-state applicants. The university received about 14,400 total applications and 5,864 in-state applications last year.

“While it’s still early in the review process, from what I’ve seen, beyond simply having more applications, I’m impressed by the outstanding quality of the applications,” said Tim Wolfe, associate provost for enrollment and dean of admission. “We have a lot of hard work and difficult decisions in front of us, but that’s a challenge we readily accept. We’re all excited to see what the Class of 2021 will ultimately add to the William & Mary community.”

The university received 1,023 Early Decision applications and granted admission to 528 of those applicants in December. The Office of Undergraduate Admission is currently reviewing the rest of the applications, and acceptance notifications are expected to be made by April 1.

The target size for the W&M Class of 2021 is 1,520 students.

I found it interesting that in the Williams news release that it stated the averages for early decision
Old SAT averages of: 731 CR 727M 725 W
Redesigned average: 724 R&W 720 M

From everything I read, the redesigned SAT averages have gone up around 30 to 40 points or so, although less of an increase at the top end of the scale. I would have expected the redesigned averages to be higher, not lower. Anybody have any thoughts on this?

Yes, I have noticed that at a lot of schools. I think what happened is that even though the new SAT calibrates lower when compared with the old SAT, I think that because there were less test preparation materials, students weren’t as able to prepare as they were with the old SAT. I also think that many of the over-achieving types that gave their testing strategy a lot of thought planned to take the old SAT because of the uncertainty of the new SAT.

My daughter started her tutoring during sophomore year because she did well on the PSAT and wanted to be able to take the old SAT and new she had to be done by January of junior year. And she never took the NEW SAT.

I also just think that even though the new SAT is supposed to be “easier” (but I’m not sure it is), it’s a new test and students and their tutors are still figuring it out.

The bigger question in my mind is now that we are seeing at many top schools that the average scores for accepted students that took the OLD SAT are actually HIGHER than the students that took the NEW SAT, does it mean that the schools didn’t actually use the concordance tables the way college board intended them to? So is a 1500 on the NEW SAT just as good as a 1500 on the OLD SAT? Or even better?

This is maybe the only year this is even a relevant question, but since we gave it so much thought in my house, it is something we are interested in understanding better.

I also would love to hear what some others think.

collegemomjam, Yes, after I wrote my initial question I noticed the University of Georgia numbers for New vs. Old Sat had higher scores for the Old SAT as well.

Maybe kids who took both test did the same or just a little better on the new test, and used the concordance table and only submitted the old score.

Also, in Williams case, maybe so many were recruited athletes and a majority took the old SAT to get pre-reads from the coaches, and there just wasn’t a large enough of cross sampling to make a valued comparison.

Yes, I think this is the only year it’s relevant, so like you I have spent so much thought trying to figure it out. Wouldn’t it be funny if in the end the scores end up being virtually the same. I’m going to start a new thread on this so we don’t hijack all the good work from this thread.

@collegemomjam
Colleges seeing scores that don’t seem to match with the concordance has become a large enough issue that College Board felt the need to have a conference call about it with admission officers this week. As you and @akqj10 point out, in many cases there is self-selection bias. A lot of high-scoring students decided to do one of two things this year: 1) switch to the ACT or 2) fit in the old SAT and then decide whether or not to take the new SAT. These decisions would tend to lower the average new SAT scores at competitive colleges and increase the new SAT scores. The data College Board presented fit with this shift. Also, the type of student who takes the old SAT in fall/winter of junior year is not identical to those taking the test later in junior year or in senior year.

Williams is a good example of why things are not entirely comparable. For example, if you look back at the figures for the class of 2020, the old SAT scores (the only kind at that point) were 713 CR and 716 M. It doesn’t look like Williams saw a significant change in the applicant pool, and yet the old SAT scores for ED 2021 were 731 CR and 727 M. So it appears that the old SAT takers this year were definitely “strong test takers.” The new SAT takers may have had other attributes to compensate for lower scores (if we are prepared to call 1464 low).

So we can’t say from average scores that the concordance was wrong or that colleges didn’t use the concordance (most did) or that the same students taking different tests on the same day would not have done 40-50 points better on the new SAT (what a concordance supposedly tells us). Obviously College Board made a pitch that the numbers so far are right in line with what they were expecting. A lot of factors come into play, many of which you have mentioned. I think it would be a leap, though, to say that a 1500 on the new SAT is just as good as a 1500 on the old SAT (although, let’s face it, they are not all that different). It’s a crazy year for students and for admission offices.

Wow! I’m so glad I’m not the only person who has been trying to make sense of all of this. Glad to hear that College Board has been on it…not that I would expect otherwise.

Is there a new thread on this topic?? I would follow it if set up.

Thanks for all of the replies and analysis. Very interesting and helpful making sense of it all.