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

In the SCEA round if Stanford’s 9% rate is significantly lower than HYP’s 15%-18%, the same kids will shun Stanford. Lots of them I know are indifferent to where they SCEA; they just want the best chance as security. I think that’s why Stanford stops releasing EA stats.

I hadn’t thought of it that way, @jzducol, but it doesn’t sound unreasonable, particularly when you layer geographic regional preference on top of it. For example, if a strong East Coast-based candidate in range for HYPS had a weak preference for S but knew they’d be happy at HYP, and were aware that the SCEA admit rate at S was 9% as opposed to 15-18% at HYP, and the RD admit rate was 3% at S vs. 4-5% at HYP, they might conclude that it would be much smarter to apply SCEA to one of HYP and then not bother to apply to S RD. S presumably doesn’t want kids who could be attractive candidates to be discouraged from applying, and therefore they might prefer not to publish the full stats.

We’ll apparently having the highest application fees isnt stopping folks from applying to Stanford And releasing ea stats didn’t either.

When you are doing SCEA you are looking at a $300,000 price tag or dealing with a $300k decision. How would a $125 vs $75 fee make any difference? I imagine they would have no shortage of takers if the price is $1250 assuming fee waiver option is still available to some applicants. Of course, politically no school can afford to do that.

Stanford’s app fee is $90, Harvard’s is $75, Yale’s is $80. If the difference between schools would seriously influence your decision on where to apply, you’re probably getting a fee waiver anyway.

Does it matter? Anyone who knows sballer knows what he’s ultimately trying to get at: Stanford uber alles! :))

if Stanford were aggressive they could get their admit rate sub 4%… drop essay requirement like Harvard, lower app fee, announce EA results, send out a lot of marketing materials, and buy advertising on social media.

This is a non sequitur, more reflexive cheerleading. No one has suggested that Stanford couldn’t lower its admit rate, just that disclosing its EA stats might tend to increase it by discouraging people from applying. Again, it’s not credible to claim that Stanford (or UChicago, or Columbia, for that matter) stopped disclosing this information because they’re modest.

If you thought about it for a minute, you’d understand that Stanford probably doesn’t actually want its admit rate to be sub-4% unless the schools to which it loses the most cross-admits are sub-5%. For branding purposes, Stanford should want to be seen as the most selective, but not so selective that high-quality candidates would be discouraged from applying. Publishing stats that showed a 6-8% difference in EA admit rates might have that undesirable effect, and this seems to be the most logical reason for Stanford to have stopped disclosing EA data.

With yields in excess of 80%, both Harvard and Stanford get nearly all of the kids they want - provided that they apply. Both schools apparently understand it’s important not to discourage them from doing so.

announcing EA result in Dec drives more apps not less. it becomes part of the news cycle that drives more apps… we’re please to announce more students than ever from all 50 states and pluto have applied… and 1% have been admitted to join the class of 2022 our best and most accomplished class ever… yada yada…

if Stanford wanted to drive more apps they could easily do this by announcing EA results and becoming part of the news cycle in Dec before RD that drives more apps along with lowering the bar on app fees and essay requirements to match Harvard’s for instance. Stanford by Not announcing EA results, along with essay requirements and the highest app fees is doing exactly what you argue.

I think there’s a lot more circumstantial evidence to support my view on this, @sbballer. I agree that Stanford could drive a lot more apps if it wanted, but it has no reason to do so unless it starts to look less selective than the schools it views as its peer group (i.e., the ones it loses meaningful numbers of cross-admits to). So it wants total apps and admit rate to remain ahead of Harvard (for the marketing value), but not too far ahead, which would discourage people from applying.

Meanwhile, if Stanford were to announce stats that showed that the SCEA admit rates for Harvard, Yale and Princeton were twice as high as Stanford’s, how do you think many of the savvy, super-qualified candidates would react? They want to get into a top-tier school - many, even most, of them may prefer Stanford - but they know how valuable that SCEA bullet is, and if they think they’re going to throw it away by applying SCEA to Stanford, they’ll go with the odds and apply early to Harvard, Yale, Princeton or MIT instead. And if they get in, and public data proves that they’re facing a 3% RD admit rate at Stanford, some number of them are just going to call it a day and not bother applying to Stanford at all.

That is what I think Stanford wants to avoid, and I think my explanation makes the most sense, certainly more than your suggestion that Stanford stopped releasing EA data because they got tired of crowing about it. Stanford really wants to have all of the best kids apply to them SCEA, and they know that if doing so starts to look like a very risky bet relative to applying early to a close competitor, many won’t.

If Harvard suddenly starts getting a lot more apps, I expect Stanford will make adjustments that will increase their total apps just enough to look like they’re still in the lead. Stanford’s problem right now is that they’re getting too many apps, especially SCEA apps, relative to the competition, and I’ll bet a lot of the ones flooding in now are from less-serious candidates, which makes the overall odds look worse to the kids they really want and discourages them from applying. Much as Stanford would probably like to crow about their SCEA app numbers, they know doing so would be bad for business.

i disagree… announcing EA results in Dec becomes part of the news cycle that drives more apps not less… Stanford’s EA rates have always been demonstrably lower than HYP… this is not a new phenomenon… and the increasing selectivity I would argue drives even more apps… sorta the velvet rope syndrome.

Stanford by not announcing EA results is actually putting the brakes on apps which is consistent with their having the highest app fees and essay requirements that creates a higher threshold for submitting an application that Harvard for instance doesn’t have.

Some of that may also be true, and doesn’t contradict what I’m saying. We agree that Stanford seems to feel it’s getting too many apps. Now ask yourself: why would they care? Shouldn’t they want to get an app from every kid they might possibly admit? They can collect the app fees and use them to hire more readers.

Well no, not really - not if it means that Stanford gets a huge flood of apps mostly from people they aren’t likely to admit, which makes it look to the kids they really care about like applying SCEA (and maybe even RD) to Stanford is a waste of a bullet. Remember, SCEA is a very helpful tool in shaping a class because it shows who’s the most interested, and if you use it somewhere else and get in, there’s a good chance Stanford won’t see an RD app from you.

Even if Stanford’s SCEA admit rate has been lower than those of its peers in the past, if it’s now sub-9% (as it may be) and those of its peers are roughly twice that, a sensible kid has to ask him/herself whether they want Stanford so badly that they’re willing to apply SCEA there and materially increase the risk that they’ll be shut out of the top tier altogether.

Personally, I think Stanford would be thrilled if a few thousand kids they were never going to admit just wouldn’t apply. Stanford would still look more selective than their peers, they’d still get apps from all the top-quality kids they really might want and those kids wouldn’t be scared off by odds that look worse than they actually are for top-tier people like them. In the meantime, though, Stanford quietly does things to keep a lid on apps and doesn’t disclose SCEA stats.

In the RD Stanford’s 3% vs HYP’s 6% really doesn’t matter because students are applying to all and Stanford will have a chance to make an offer to the most sought after kids. But in SCEA if Stanford doesn’t see certain (the most competitive) applicants it probably will never see them again. And potential SCEA HYPS admits are pretty recognizable in the applicants pool, at least that’s what a former Stanford AO told me. For these kids the main goal in early rd is to get in somewhere. If Stanford saw precipitous drop in the last few years of high caliber applicants in SCEA it had to be concerned. I know two of my D’s friends who decided to apply Y instead of S this past SCEA cycle because S was only 9.5% previous year. For those kids school fit is never an issue as they are usually allrounders with great accomplishment.

Stanford’s ea rate has always been lower than the ives…a lot lower. Not a new phenomenon…and I doubt the caliber of students has gone down at all…in fact it probably went up. Despite an n of 2 study that supports a pet rationalization. If you’re a top student who wants to go to Stanford…I doubt they’re applying to yale even if it’s easier to get into.

This, I think, is your core misconception, @sbballer - you don’t seem to understand that there could be, and, in fact, are, loads of super-qualified candidates who don’t care that much whether they go to HYP or S, as long as they get into one of them, or who might prefer S, but not so strongly that they’re willing to take a huge flyer by applying SCEA to S when it looks like the odds are 2x or more as good if they apply to H, Y or P, and the RD odds at all these places are daunting. I can assure you, I know plenty of such kids.

You seem to think every superstar candidate has drunk the same Stanford Kool-Aid as you and is going to use their early bullet there whatever the odds, because Stanford is so head-and-shoulders above HYP that of course that’s what they’d do. In fact, there are all sorts of reasons why tiptop candidates might think Stanford is fabulous but not strongly preferred to HYP - such as being from the East Coast and preferring to be closer to family and friends.

Once more, I’ll ask: why isn’t Stanford disclosing SCEA stats anymore? Saying that it’s because they’re modest isn’t credible. Reasonable people will conclude: it’s because they’re getting too many apps, and this is hurting their ability to attract the best candidates to apply SCEA, because many tiptop candidates don’t love Stanford so much that they’re going to materially increase their risk of being shut out of HYPS.

@DeepBlue86 “has drunk the same Stanford Kool-Aid as you” sounds a little like a personal attack, especially given you are also making a lot of assumptions and hypotheses. I kind of agree with @sbballer that the very top applicants whose top choice is Stanford tend to apply early to Stanford. They want to take their best shot at their dream school in the SCEA cycle. Majority of these are strong STEM applicants and wannabe entrepreneurs. And, most of these don’t look at Yale as an option, whether it is right or wrong. I do agree with you that those who don’t mind going to one of HYPSM tend to probably strategize a little about their chances.

I think people who want Stanford instead of hypm or was or whatever want it mostly for geographic reasons (how many top schools in that area compared to the NE? Very few), and culture/major, proximity to silicon valley, etc.

I’m sure some kids apply to all just to get into a top somewhere, but is that the majority? I don’t think so.

@fivesages

“has drunk the same Stanford Kool-Aid as you” may sound a little like a personal attack, but for anyone who knows anything about the long history of sbballer’s sole pathological life’s mission on CC is to promulgate the “Stanford uber alles” mythology at every chance he gets, you wouldn’t find the Kool-Aid remark of DeepBlue86 to be all that far off. Thanks to sbballer, this thread has now quickly become a Stanford thread.

If you look at Stanford’s latest published Common Data Set, you’ll see that something like 60% of the undergrads are in STEM or STEM-related majors (including STEM-oriented interdisciplinary majors), and over 40% of the students are from California. It may be difficult for some to believe, but there are many, many tippy-top candidates who might prefer a different environment (e.g., at Harvard, where there are about 40% STEM and STEM-related majors and 40% students from New England and the Mid-Atlantic states, with less than 20% from the entire US Pacific region).

If I were Stanford, with top or near-top offerings in a very broad range of majors (including humanities and social sciences), I’d be concerned about kids who are non-STEM, non-entrepreneurship-focused or non-Californian feeling both (i) like they might feel more at home elsewhere and (ii) given the odds, and the advantage to applying early, that it would be the smarter play to apply SCEA to one of HYP. This is why I think Stanford finds the tidal wave of apps not entirely welcome, wants to keep a lid on it and isn’t disclosing SCEA stats anymore.

And I might suggest a thought experiment for those who think Stanford has stopped disclosing SCEA admit rates out of modesty: if, in not very many years, Stanford were to disclose an SCEA admit rate of, say, 4% while Harvard’s was, say, 14%, and their relative RD admit rates were 2% and 4% respectively, what do you think most tippy-top candidates (particularly non-STEM, non-entrepreneurial focused or non-Californian) are going to do?

I agree that Stanford might be concerned about starting to appear more unattainable compared to Harvard. This is why they probably do not disclose REA numbers. However I do not think they really need to worry about this. Top students will always be willing to apply to Harvard and Stanford just in case, no matter how unattainable they seem to be. Their dream-school status ensures that. There are actually quite a few hypercompeittive top students who get into a HYPS school SCEA but then apply to 1 or more of the other three RD just to see if they can get in.