Lehigh reporting 21.9%, a record low. Down from 25.2% last year. Applicant volume up by 12.6% over last year.
http://thebrownandwhite.com/2018/04/11/lehigh-acceptance-rate-reaches-historic-low/
Thanks @Corbett. That’s crazy low. I read the article…bothers me that they don’t say what the acceptance rate was for ED, unless I missed it. They say how many kids were admitted ED but they don’t say what the pool was.
The cited article indicates an overall acceptance rate at Lehigh of 22%. The graphic at the top includes a more detailed breakdown:
61% ED1
33% ED2
19% RD
So the odds weren’t bad – if you applied ED. If you applied RD, then the odds weren’t good.
Wow thanks @Corbett! I missed that. Those are interesting stats!!!
So ED gives applicants an advantage partly because it Assures the school they’ll attend if admitted, why then does (in leighs case) such a disparity exist between ed 1 and 2? Do all of the hooked (legacy or athlete or quest bridge) kids apply ED1? Is ED2 somewhat lower stat kids that didnt get in ED1?
@shafthalf those are good questions. I’m not sure exactly, but I think all of the above. I do think the athletes at most schools apply ED I. They are also the applicants that are probably the most passionate about the school and that may come across in the application, as well. ED2 might be kids with lower stats, or kids that didn’t get their top choice EDI and they are anxious to seal the deal somewhere else. But ED2 is still easier than RD. I wonder if having all of these application options will have some kind of backlash eventually. But those Lehigh stats are scary.
Claremont Colleges: http://tsl.news/news/7540/
Each of the 5Cs recently announced its admissions rates, with several of them experiencing increases in applicants and some yielding record-low acceptance rates.
Pomona College, Scripps College, and Pitzer College saw a surge in the number of applicants this year, pushing down acceptance rates. The number of applicants for Harvey Mudd College stayed about the same, and decreased at Claremont McKenna College.
After enrolling 329 students in the class of 2021 — the largest incoming class in the college’s history — Scripps’ acceptance rate plummeted from 33 percent to 24.1 percent this year.
The college accepted fewer students this year and utilized the waitlist more to prevent having to house first-year students off-campus again due to over-enrollment. According to Scripps spokesperson Elizabeth Hamilton, the target class size for the class of 2022 is around 250 students.
Scripps admitted 90 out of 281 Early Decision applicants and 671 out of 2,917 Regular Decision applicants. ED applicants make up 35 percent of the acceptance pool.
Pomona had 10,245 applicants this year, the most in its history, pushing its acceptance rate down from 8.2 percent to a record low 7 percent. The target class size is 410-415 students from the regular acceptance pool and 20-25 students from the transfer pool, Pomona Director of Admissions Adam Sapp wrote in an email to TSL.
“Pomona admissions officers put in long hours over the course of many months to complete the application review process,” Sapp wrote. “We were humbled and excited to admit such a diverse and academically talented group of first-year and transfer students.”
Pomona did not provide data on early decision applicants to TSL before press time.
CMC’s admission rate dropped from 10.4 percent to 8.9 percent despite receiving fewer applications this year. The college admitted 558 students, compared to 658 students last year.
Pitzer received 4,358 applications this year, a 16 percent increase from last year. The college’s admission rate dropped from 15 percent to 13.2 percent, or 577 students, and is expecting a class size of 266-271, according to Yvonne Berumen, vice president of admissions and financial aid at Pitzer.
Pitzer admitted 135 out of 456 ED applicants and 441 out of 3902 RD applicants. ED applicants make up 23 percent of the acceptance pool.
HMC’s admission rate increased slightly from last year’s 13.9 percent to 14.5 percent. It received 4,101 applications, only slightly more than last year’s 4,078 applications. The target class size is 225 students, according to HMC Vice President of Admissions and Financial Aid Thyra Briggs.
HMC admitted 88 out of 465 ED applicants and 506 out of 3636 RD applicants. ED applicants make up 39 percent of the acceptance pool.
“We’re excited as always about this group of admitted students and for our campus to get to know them,” Briggs wrote. “We become very attached to these students throughout the process and love imagining how they’ll connect with the rest of our community.”
Pomona and CMC’s admitted student pools have similar proportions of first-generation students — around 19 percent — while HMC and Pitzer’s admitted pools are about 12 percent first-generation students. Scripps’ admitted pool is 7.3 percent first-generation students.
There is significant variation in the percentage of non-white students in each admitted student pool at each of the 5Cs. Pitzer admitted the lowest percentage at 43.3 percent of its admitted student pool, followed by Scripps with 45.3 percent, Pomona with 55.2 percent, and Mudd with the highest percentage of 62 percent.
CMC did not provide TSL with racial diversity data before press time.
The percentage of female students accepted was higher than the percentage of male students accepted at each of the 5Cs.
Pitzer had the highest female-to-male ratio in its acceptance pool — 57 percent female to 39.2 percent male. HMC also had a notably high female-to-male ratio in its acceptance pool — 54.5 percent female to 45.5 percent male.
“Female admitted students typically yield differently from men at STEM institutions,” Briggs wrote, explaining the higher percentage of female students in HMC’s acceptance pool.
Eleven students that deferred their acceptance in a previous year will also be joining this year’s class at Pomona. There are also six deferred-acceptance students at HMC, 14 at Scripps, and 15 at Pitzer. CMC did not provide data about students that have deferred their acceptance to TSL.
Interesting that Pomona is not releasing its ED data yet. In the past they would do so around March after the ED2 admissions were done.
Schools don’t commonly release ED1 vs ED2 numbers. However, I’ve heard that ED2 acceptance rates are typically lower. In 2015, for example, the NY Times had a story about ED2:
Updating overall admit rates:[ul][]Adding Northeastern University per post #409
[]Adding College of William & Mary per https://www.wm.edu/news/stories/2018/class-of-2022-newly-admitted-students-find-a-home-at-wm.php
[]Updating Union College per https://www.union.edu/news/stories/2018/04/a-look-at-the-class-of-2022-admitted-students–.php
[]Adding Lehigh University per http://thebrownandwhite.com/2018/04/11/lehigh-acceptance-rate-reaches-historic-low/
[li]Adding Scripps College, Pitzer College and Claremont McKenna College per http://tsl.news/news/7540/[/ul][/li]Stanford (RD+SCEA) 2,040 out of 47,450 (4.3%)
Harvard (RD+SCEA) 1,962 out of 42,749 (4.6%)
Princeton (RD+SCEA) 1,941 out of 35,370 (5.5%)
Columbia (RD+ED) 2,214 out of 40,203 (5.5%)
Yale (RD+SCEA) 2,229 out of 35,306 (6.3%)
MIT (RD+EA) 1,464 out of 21,706 (6.7%)
Pomona (RD+ED) 713 out of 10,245 (6.9%)
Brown (RD+ED) 2,566 out of 35,438 (7.2%)
Duke (RD+ED) 3,097 out of 37,390 (8.3%)
Penn (RD+ED) 3,731 out of 44,491 (8.4%)
Northwestern (RD+ED) 3,392 out of 40,425 (8.4%)
Dartmouth (RD+ED) 1,925 out of 22,033 (8.7%)
Claremont McKenna (RD+EDI+EDII) 558 out of ~6,270 (8.9%)
Swarthmore (RD+ED) 980 out of 10,749 (9.1%)
Johns Hopkins (RD+ED) 2,894 out of 29,128 (9.9%)
Cornell (RD+ED) 5,288 out of 51,328 (10.3%)
Bowdoin (RD+ED1+ED2) ~935 out of 9,081 (10.3%)
Williams (RD+ED) 1,163 out of 9,559 (12.2%)
Amherst (RD+ED) 1,244 out of 9,722 (12.8%)
USC 8,258 out of 64,256 (12.9%)
Colby 1,602 out of 12,313 (13.0%)
Pitzer (RD+EDI+EDII) 577 out of 4,358 (13.2%)
Barnard (RD+ED) 1,088 out of 7,897 (13.8%)
Olin 125 out of 882 (14.2%)
Harvey Mudd (RD+ED) 594 out of 4,101 (14.5%)
Georgetown (RD+EA) 3,327 out of 22,897 (14.5%)
Tufts (RD+EDI+EDII) ~3,139 out of 21,502 (14.6%)
WashU (RD+ED) 4695/31300 (15%)
Tulane ~6,598 out of 38,813 (17%)
Wesleyan (RD+EDI+EDII) 2,233 out of 12,788 (17.5%)
Notre Dame (RD+EA) 3,586 out of 20,370 (17.6%)
Middlebury (RD+ED, likely excluding Febs) 1,696 out 9,230 (18.4%)
Emory (RD+ED, excl. Oxford-only apps) ~5,135 out of 27,759 (18.5%)
Davidson ~1,066 out of 5,700 (18.7%)
Haverford 877 out of 4682 (18.7%)
Wellesley ~1,267 out of 6,670 (19%)
Northeastern (RD+EDI+EDII) ~11,830 out of 62,268 (19%)
Carleton (RD+ED) ~1,377 out of < 7,100 (19.4%)
NYU (RD+ED1+ED2) 15,722 out of 75,037 (< 21.0, incl. 19% for NY campus)
Hamilton (RD+EDI+EDII) 1,300 out of 6,240 (20.8%)
Lehigh (RD+ED1+ED2) 3,418 out of 15,623 (21.9%)
BU ~14,184 out of 64,473 (22%)
Georgia Tech (RD+EA) ~7,832 out of 35,600 (22%)
**Scripps (RD+EDI+EDII) 761 out of 3,198 (23.8%) **
Vassar (RD+ED1+ED2) ~1,994 out of 8,312 (24%)
UVA 9,850 out of 37,222 (26.5%)
BC (RD+EA) 8,400 out of >31,000 (< 27.1%)
VIllanova (RD+EA+ED) 6,545 out of 22,727 (28.8%)
William and Mary (RD+ED) ~5,270 out of 14,640 (36%)
Florida 14,866 out of 40,849 (36.4%)
Union (RD+EDI+EDII) 2,550 our of 6,713 (38.0%)
Macalester (RD+EDI+EDII) 2,453 out of 5,985 (41.0%)
Georgia (RD+EA) < 12,700 out of 26,500 (< 47.9%)
Santa Clara (RD+ED) ~ 7,954 out of 16,233 (49%)
The drop in acceptance rate at Lehigh appears to be primarily due to a rise in applications. So why did applications rise?
It’s commonly suspected that schools have a “bag of tricks” for boosting applications, like going test-optional, eliminating supplemental questions, and reducing the application fee. But as far as I can tell, Lehigh hasn’t done any of those things: it looks like they still require tests, have supplemental questions, and charge a $70 fee. So what are they doing instead?
Lehigh’s reputation, to a greater extent than most well-known northeastern schools, is based on strength in “practical” fields, like engineering, computer science, and business. This may be attractive to a lot of people in the current economic climate, but it seems like a particularly good fit for Californians, who tend to have high interest in the tech business sector. And Californians are currently freaking out about the growing difficulty of UC admissions, as other threads on this forum clearly demonstrate.
So it would make sense for Lehigh to up its game on the West Coast. They are probably betting that (1) UC admissions will become increasingly competitive; (2) more and more California students will be looking for out-of-state alternatives for tech and business, and (3) that they can be an attractive option in that niche.
In alphabetical order because it was bothering me
Amherst (RD+ED) 1,244 out of 9,722 (12.8%)
Barnard (RD+ED) 1,088 out of 7,897 (13.8%)
BC (RD+EA) 8,400 out of >31,000 (< 27.1%)
Bowdoin (RD+ED1+ED2) ~935 out of 9,081 (10.3%)
Brown (RD+ED) 2,566 out of 35,438 (7.2%)
BU ~14,184 out of 64,473 (22%)
Carleton (RD+ED) ~1,377 out of < 7,100 (19.4%)
Claremont McKenna (RD+EDI+EDII) 558 out of ~6,270 (8.9%)
Colby 1,602 out of 12,313 (13.0%)
Columbia (RD+ED) 2,214 out of 40,203 (5.5%)
Cornell (RD+ED) 5,288 out of 51,328 (10.3%)
Dartmouth (RD+ED) 1,925 out of 22,033 (8.7%)
Davidson ~1,066 out of 5,700 (18.7%)
Duke (RD+ED) 3,097 out of 37,390 (8.3%)
Emory (RD+ED, excl. Oxford-only apps) ~5,135 out of 27,759 (18.5%)
Florida 14,866 out of 40,849 (36.4%)
Georgetown (RD+EA) 3,327 out of 22,897 (14.5%)
Georgia (RD+EA) < 12,700 out of 26,500 (< 47.9%)
Georgia Tech (RD+EA) ~7,832 out of 35,600 (22%)
Hamilton (RD+EDI+EDII) 1,300 out of 6,240 (20.8%)
Harvard (RD+SCEA) 1,962 out of 42,749 (4.6%)
Harvey Mudd (RD+ED) 594 out of 4,101 (14.5%)
Haverford 877 out of 4682 (18.7%)
Johns Hopkins (RD+ED) 2,894 out of 29,128 (9.9%)
Lehigh (RD+ED1+ED2) 3,418 out of 15,623 (21.9%)
Macalester (RD+EDI+EDII) 2,453 out of 5,985 (41.0%)
Middlebury (RD+ED, likely excluding Febs) 1,696 out 9,230 (18.4%)
MIT (RD+EA) 1,464 out of 21,706 (6.7%)
Northeastern (RD+EDI+EDII) ~11,830 out of 62,268 (19%)
Northwestern (RD+ED) 3,392 out of 40,425 (8.4%)
Notre Dame (RD+EA) 3,586 out of 20,370 (17.6%)
NYU (RD+ED1+ED2) 15,722 out of 75,037 (< 21.0, incl. 19% for NY campus)
Olin 125 out of 882 (14.2%)
Penn (RD+ED) 3,731 out of 44,491 (8.4%)
Pitzer (RD+EDI+EDII) 577 out of 4,358 (13.2%)
Pomona (RD+ED) 713 out of 10,245 (6.9%)
Princeton (RD+SCEA) 1,941 out of 35,370 (5.5%)
Santa Clara (RD+ED) ~ 7,954 out of 16,233 (49%)
Scripps (RD+EDI+EDII) 761 out of 3,198 (23.8%)
Stanford (RD+SCEA) 2,040 out of 47,450 (4.3%)
Swarthmore (RD+ED) 980 out of 10,749 (9.1%)
Tufts (RD+EDI+EDII) ~3,139 out of 21,502 (14.6%)
Tulane ~6,598 out of 38,813 (17%)
Union (RD+EDI+EDII) 2,550 out of 6,713 (38.0%)
USC 8,258 out of 64,256 (12.9%)
UVA 9,850 out of 37,222 (26.5%)
Vassar (RD+ED1+ED2) ~1,994 out of 8,312 (24%)
VIllanova (RD+EA+ED) 6,545 out of 22,727 (28.8%)
WashU (RD+ED) 4695/31300 (15%)
Wellesley ~1,267 out of 6,670 (19%)
Wesleyan (RD+EDI+EDII) 2,233 out of 12,788 (17.5%)
William and Mary (RD+ED) ~5,270 out of 14,640 (36%)
Williams (RD+ED) 1,163 out of 9,559 (12.2%)
Yale (RD+SCEA) 2,229 out of 35,306 (6.3%)
Spoke with a rep from U Richmond who said EA rate was 30% and RD rate was 11%!
Also, @foosondaughter or @anonymous_otter127 , wasn’t there a breakdown by EA/ED/SCEA/RD upthread? I seem to recall seeing Stanford’s (and others’) RD admit rates, but it’s not in this current list.
I don’t see UCLA, Berkeley?
Don’t think the numbers have been announced.
For last year’s cycle (i.e freshmen entering in Fall 2017), the UC system didn’t release the admissions numbers until early July 2017. So you may have to wait until July.
@Corinthian I’ll PM you!
I’m not totally immersed the stats, but from what I gather state flagships are experiencing more stable acceptances. In this crazy world of declining acceptances, I’m going to get my younger kid (S21) as excited as possible about our flagship (it’s had pretty stable in state stats the last few years but is still very competitive to get a slot) and pray that it works out. And I"ll encourage him apply to other states’ flagships too; OOS still cheaper than privates.
Has anyone looked specifically at the top 20 flagships to see what their trends are? I know UCs are impossible. But what about places like IU, Illinois-Urbana, and other similar?
I also feel like kids without other hooks, their best shot is to be geographic diversity pick – which means attending college other side of the country. Which has its ups and downs and for some kids isn’t a good idea or fit.
@sbjdorlo:
EA, EDI and ED II, RD, WL, and Z-list/deferred admissions. 
@Corbett, the NYTimes article lists ED1 and ED2 rates but then draws the wrong conclusion, IMO.
My view is that the ED2 admit rate is the unhooked admit rate during ED1 (athletes, Questbridge, etc. bump up the ED1 admit rate but you should look at the ED2 rate if you are unhooked).
I don’t think rates for IU have changed.
The majors with most competitive entry at UIUC (specifically, CS) have gotten more competitive. Many majors, not really.
UCs are tougher, but depending on the UC, still easier to project.
Compared to research U’s in the same tier, LAC admissions have not gotten as crazy.
So it comes down to the kid, the major, demographics, etc.