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

Does anyone have anything on American? I heard their admit rates plunged this year…

@suzyQ7 Interesting, I found an American article, but it was only for ED, even though it was just published a few days ago. I love the blunt first sentence.

http://www.theeagleonline.com/article/2017/03/university-accepted-82-6-percent-of-early-decision-applicants

Adding AU ED:

Harvard RD 1118 out of 33,033 (3.4%)
Princeton RD 1120 out of 26,053 (4.3%)(waitlist,1168=4.5%, Yield,1308=69.2%)
Stanford REA/RD 2050 out of 44,073 (4.6%)
Yale RD 1401 out of 27,814 (5.0%)(Yield,1550=69.2%)
Columbia ED/RD 2185 out of 37,389 (5.8%)
Brown RD 1927 out of 29,554 (6.5%)(Deferred accepted,100=5.4%, waitlist,1000=3.4%)
MIT RD 781 out of 11,853 (6.6%)
Penn RD 2345 out of 34,266 (6.8%)(Yield,2445=66.1%)
Northwestern RD ~2408 out of 33,519 (7.2%)
Duke RD 2255 out of ~30,884 (7.3%)(58 deferred accepted=8.6%)
MIT EA 657 out of 8394 (7.8%) (def=69.7%, rej=22.4%)
Pomona ED/RD ~742 out of 9046 (8.2%)
Dartmouth RD 1537 out of 18,035 (8.5%)
Vanderbilt RD 2382 out of 27,841 (8.6%)
Swarthmore ED/RD 960 out of 9383 (10.2%)(Yield,405=42.1%)
Johns Hopkins RD 2542 out of 24,644 (10.3%)
Cornell RD ~4510 out of 41,654 (10.8%)(waitlist,5713=13.7%)
Bowdoin RD 719 out of ~6264 (11.5%)
Georgetown EA 931 out of 7822 (11.9%)(def=88.1%)
Williams College RD 996 out of 7865 (12.7%)
Tufts RD ~2453 out of 18,791 (13.1%)
Boston University ED2 ~274 out of 2039 (~13.4%)
Harvard SCEA 938 out of 6473 (14.5%)
Colorado College ED1/ED2/EA/RD 1212 out of 8215 (14.7%)
Barnard 1139 out of 7716 (14.8%)
Princeton SCEA 770 out of 5003 (15.4%)
Wesleyan ED1/ED2/RD ~1932 out 12,543 (15.4%)
Washington University in St. Louis ED/RD ~4875 out of 30,464 (16%)
USC RD 8980 out of 56,000 (16.0%)
Middlebury RD 1350 out of ~8082 (16.7%)(Yield,705=40.2%)
Yale SCEA 871 out of 5086 (17.1%) (def=52.7%, rej=28.6%)
Georgetown RD 2382 out of 13,643 (17.5%)(Yield, 1600=48.3%)
Georgia Tech RD (IS/OOS) 2917 out of 15,769 (18.5%)
Haverford ED/RD 859 out of 4424 (19.4%)
UCLA RD (IS/OOS) ~20,400 out of 102,000 (~20%)
Carleton College ED1/ED2/RD ~1300 out of 6500 (~20%)(Yield,520=~40%)(ED1/ED2=~208)
Rice ED 329 out of 1604 (20.5%)
Wellesley ED1/ED2/RD ~1197 out of 5700 (~21%)
Emory RD 4698 out of 22,201 (21.2%)
UVA RD (OOS) 2342 out of 10,897 (21.5%)
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%)
Vassar ED1/ED2/RD 1769 out of 7746 (22.8%)(275 ED accepted)
Vanderbilt ED1/ED2 __ out of __ (23.6%)
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%)
UVA RD (IS/OOS) 4043 out of 16,361 (24.7%)
Boston University RD 14,013 out of 56,634 (24.7%)(Yield,3400=22.4%)
Bowdoin ED1/ED2 244 out of ~976 (~25%)
Wake Forest RD ~2750 out of 11,000 (~25%)(Yield,1350=38.6%)
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%)
Trinity College RD 1691 out of 5655 (30.0%)
UVA RD (IS) 1701 out of 5664 (30.0%)
Johns Hopkins ED 591 out of 1934 (30.6%)
Emory ED 474 out of 1493 (31.7%)
Boston College RD ~6300 out of 28,500 (32.3%)
Boston College EA ~2900 out of 9000 (~33%)(def,3500=38.9%, rej,2500=27.8%)
Williams ED 257 out of 728 (35.3%)
Wake Forest ED1/ED2 ~750 out of 2000 (~37.5%)
Middlebury ED2 60 out of ~155 (38.7%)
University of Florida RD 13,214 out of ~34,000 (~38.9%)
Macalester ED1/ED2/RD ~2301 out of 5901 (~39.0%)
George Washington RD 10,216 out of ~25,500 (~40.1%)
Boston University ED1 916 out of 2142 (42.8%)
Middlebury ED1/ED2 403 out ~828 (48.7%)
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%)
George Washington ED1/ED2 815 out of ~1500 (~54.3%)
Trinity College ED1/ED2 315 out of 443 (71.1%)
American ED1/ED2 758 out of 918 (82.6%)

You also have to back out hooked students and in the end you get very close to the RD rate.

Yes, but it requires a lot of guesswork and we ultimately don’t know enough to know whether the unhooked ED/EA applicant has an edge or not. Taking out recruited athletes is easier because they have a nearly 100% acceptance rate. Other hooks vary, and they don’t necessarily all apply ED/EA.

I think the reason UChicago applications dropped is that the Chicago murder rate skyrocketed last year. Obviously this concerned the admissions office a great deal as they started offering $500 to any student who could come up with a good propaganda campaign to distract prospective applicants from the reality that UChicago is located in one of the most dangerous places in the US. The University holds the dubious honor of employing the largest police force of any university in the world. That’s what it takes to maintain safety in the Green Zone. Still, one needs to be “street smart”, i.e., don’t stray more than a few blocks from campus in the wrong direction or you might get murdered/raped/mugged. If murders decline this year, applications might rise a bit.

Regarding athletes, the case I’m most interested in is Stanford, because I’m guessing they recruit 150+ athletes a year, and if they’re technically admitting them RD and not including them in the SCEA numbers, it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison with the Ivies in assessing what proportion of the class they admit early. As @spayurpets says, the athletes who enter into LOIs are virtually certain to enroll, whenever they’re formally admitted.

@PurpleTitan

Alas, the easily gullible are legion.

An interesting approach. But, as with any filter, it has its limits. What qualifies as an “achievement”? There could be all sorts of things that are valuable but don’t make the cut. This approach is certainly an interesting lens, but at the end of the day, it just drives home the fact that there’s no one correct way to look at colleges. What is right for one person is not for another. Thus the appropriate lens varies from person to person. But “achievements” is certainly a lens worth having in the toolbox.

@TTG while not at all to say that Vandy hasn’t become more competitive, re ACT ranges at Vandy, the 2006 numbers are not directly comparable to now because the ACT was not as widely regarded as a legit test for elite admissions back then. I believe Princeton had something like 2-3% of applicants submit ACT then. In 2001, a 36 ACT was a 1 in 12,000 score, whereas last year it was only like 1 in 935, due to the shift in the talent of the pool taking the test.

@DeepBlue86 Dartblog has suggested that Dartmouth pushes some of its athletic recruits into RD to make ED pool appear smaller than it really is.

@spayurpets re is there an advantage for unhooked to applying SCEA vs ED, these schools will say there is no advantage per se, and I don’t think they’re lying. But I would say the advantage is that you can be assured a thorough read, perhaps more than RD. Whether a thorough read makes a difference depends on the applicant.

Anyone know Hamilton RD?

@sushiritto: Stanford (and other FBS schools who give student-athletes scholarships like Northwestern and Duke) would actually be at the lower end of the scale in percentage of the student body being athletes because scholarships cost money. The Ivies actually sponsor more sports because their student-athletes don’t cost more money than regular students and their athletes are more likely to drop a sport because they don’t suffer financially if they do. Thus Northwestern typically brings in 20 football recruits or less each year while the Ivies bring in 30+ each for football.

@keiekei: I agree: there’s no one way to rank by alumni achievements. I have my way, others will have others, and I am fine with that.

Unlike what some people seem to think, there is no iron law of rankings and tiers where some school is absolutely top 5/10/20 in everyone’s minds.

@PurpleTitan Thanks! Makes sense. Someone was asking about what % of the class are athletes, IIRC, and I thought I’d take a stab at it using Stanford #'s.

@DeepBlue86, it is simply impossible to know how Stanford is categorizing scholarship admits. I know that Stanford, alone of the high academic, non Ivy, D1 schools has a sort of summary admissions process scholarship recruits go through. In the cases with which I have personal knowledge, this proces occurred in the late spring and summer of junior year, well before any application dates. How that fits in the admissions data is anyone’s guess.

I think it also probably doesn’t move the needle as much as is being assumed here. They publicly state they offer 300 scholarships total, approximately 120 or so of which will have to be full counters. So that is about 30 kids a class (not accounting for red shirts or attrition). How they carve up the other 45 scholarships a year is really anyone’s guess. But I really doubt they are bringing in 150-200 scholarship recruits a year, which the Ivys routinely do (equating likely letter recruits with scholarship recruits). Now, given the crazy admit rates, Stanford may offer admission slots to PWOs, or to kids promised aid in subsequent years, but I personally don’t know anyone who was offered such an option at Stanford.

I do disagree slightly with @PurpleTitan about varsity sports at Stanford vis the Ivies. Stanford actually has a very robust varsity program, and sponsors 36 varsity sports (Princeton sponsors 37, Harvard 41 and Yale 34). @PurpleTitan is correct when it comes to the other high academic D1s. Northwestern and Vandy’s varsity teams number in the teens, and Notre Dame and Duke’s in the low twenties.

What we do know is that while Stanford has relatively fewer varsity athletes per percentage of undergrads than the Ivys (@13% at Stanford compared to @20% at Harvard and Princeton) it is still much higher than other high academic D1s (like Northwestern at @5%).

Thanks for that, @Ohiodad51. I really don’t know much about this subject, but aren’t there quite a lot of recruited athletes at Stanford who aren’t getting athletic scholarships but are on a special track to admission? That’s what I’m focused on. If Stanford has >150 recruited athletes of this kind per class (and I don’t know that they do, I’m just guessing based on the prominence of the athletic program), and those athletes are primarily being admitted RD, then there are a certain number of slots in the class that could never be offered to SCEA applicants, and the percentage of the class that is effectively locked up early is larger than it appears.

Stanford admits athletic recruits EA and RD on what appears to be a rolling admission process. 5 star offensive lineman Walker Little mom announced her son’s admission in August well before the EA deadline so the Stanford admissions office obviously evaluated his app well before EA results were officially released and gave him the green light.

Stanford as well as other FBS schools split scholarships… so the actual number of athletes is greater than the total number of scholarships. Stanford women’s swimming just had another monster recruiting class and top recruits are being admitted under partial scholarships to accommodate the haul. Additionally there are athletes that are not on scholarships at all.

@Ohiodad51: I know that Northwestern admissions does deny athletic recruits for academic reasons, so Stanford isn’t alone in that respect)

They do seem to weigh GPA more than test scores for athletes (at least in the revenue sports), but if you don’t keep your grades up, your offer can be pulled (as that has happened before).

Right, @sbballer - that’s not surprising. So, when you talk about how Stanford admits less of its class early than the Ivies, It’s possible that that’s technically true but only because some spots that are reserved for athletes aren’t being accounted for in the SCEA round the way they are at the Ivies. Put another way, if the Ivies and Stanford recruit close to 200 athletes each but the Ivies accept virtually all of them SCEA while Stanford accounts for them most of them later, you should back most of them out from the Ivy SCEA totals if you want to make an apples-to-apples comparison with Stanford of the proportion of the class admitted early.