College popularity: number of applications per enrollee

<p>Comparing Cal Tech to U Texas in this vein will never make sense though. The only reason I would compare Cal Tech to U Texas is if I live in the state of Texas and am trying to decide if the extra cost of Cal Tech is worth it or not. At no point would I ask myself how the applications:enrolled ratio works out. I might ask myself if having gone to Cal Tech will make me appear smarter to potential employers though. And whether it does or not could probably be determined by looking at the acceptance rate (essentially a function of yield) and SAT range.</p>

<p>Igellar-
I wouldn't look at the applications/enrollees ratio either when trying to decide on a college. I simply thought it was a good way to determine which schools are generally most attractive to students for other reasons.</p>

<p>Are these numbers of applications that were applications of accepted students or just total applications received?</p>

<p>Total applications received.</p>

<p>Well, this is interesting. What it really shows is how much work each admissions office does in proportion to the student population.</p>

<p>I think college admissions offices all work hard. What it shows is college popularity.</p>

<p>To me, this takes an average of sorts of the admission rate and the yield rate, two things which balance eachother out. Does it really make sense to combine the two? And then to call this number the "popularity"? I don't know. Applications per acceptance, ie acceptance rate alone, is probably a better determinate of popularity.</p>

<p>haha, i love how far down uChicago is</p>

<p>CH: </p>

<p>In the case of WashU, I think 'popular' --- defined as liked by many people --- fits. There are reasons for its appeal to students across the country, if not necessarily to the CC crowd. </p>

<ol>
<li><p>Medium-sized enrollment. There's really a limited number of very selective, highly ranked colleges with a student body in between the smallish LACs --- largest being under 3,000 (which is less than my kid's h.s.) --- and the 20,000+ big-name public universities. </p></li>
<li><p>Location in the heart of the U.S. and therefore only halfway across the country for those in the West, even less so for those in the East and South and not far at all for those in the Midwest. WashU offers students from many regions in the country the appeal of going "away" to an excellent university, but with only half a day's travel. And a MetroLink connection from the campus to the airport makes traveling easy. Distance and difficulty in travel can knock colleges off an application list, so this factor is a plus. </p></li>
<li><p>Also a plus locationwise, is the appeal for many of the image or "vibe" of the Midwest as a more laidback, less competitive place with a kinder-gentler pace and friendlier people. Also, more politically neutral (middle of the road) and moderate in weather while still offering four seasons (enough snow and winter for character but not enough to cause SAD and summers that are humid, but don't last as long as in the South.)</p></li>
<li><p>A broad range of appealing undergraduate programs in science, business, art, architecture, engineering as well as all the other usual liberal arts majors, with an emphasis on flexibility in the ability to take courses in various colleges and an avowed ease in changing majors or double or triple majoring. It is not a totally open curriculum, but minimal requirements allow for a lot of choice. </p></li>
<li><p>A very attractive, classic college campus with green quads, architecturally appealing buildings, great dorms, excellent food and a walking-distance off-campus area with plenty of restaurants, shopping, clubs, etc. and MetroLink access to places further away. Big urban park next door with many ways to escape the campus "bubble." Those who have visited do tend to see the appeal --- unlike some who have never been there --- and like it enough to apply even if they later don't choose to matriculate. </p></li>
<li><p>The appeal that it is not HYPSMC, etc. in that many applicants feel they have a decent shot at getting in, and have found other factors attractive enough to warrant application. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>In other words, it can be said that WashU appeals to a lot of students applying to college. It is popular as a place to apply to for a range of reasons.</p>

<p>imaparasite-
Well, acceptance rate is pretty similar to the applications-to-enrollees ratio that I posted above. The correlation is -.81, a high correlation, inverse relationship. But, accept rate is dependent on yield and yield is a function partly of financial aid, competition from peer institutions (how tough your league is), manipulating early decision, and so forth. </p>

<p>You get some revealing differences when you compare my app ratio with accept rate.
Wash U is #1 in app ratio but #11 in accept rate.
Johns Hopkins and Carnegie Mellon have high app ratios but accept rates around 26-28% (competition??)
Rochester, Fordham, Tulane, and American have high app ratios but accept rates above 40% (competion?, what?)</p>

<p>While interesting, this method is flawed because it goes right from applicants to enrollees and skips accepted students. Yield is still a better gauge of popularity because it shows how many people attend out of those who actually had an option to attend.</p>

<p>Collegehelp:</p>

<p>Why is it that Cornell Endowed Colleges and Cornell University are two different categories? Isn't Cornell essentially one entity, for application purposes? From the website, I got the idea that applicants are asked to designate two colleges as a preference (say, in S2's case, CHE and CAS). Is there a big difference there regarding numbers of applications? </p>

<p>Should I post this in the Cornell forum? (I do have lots of other questions.....)</p>

<p>U.S. Naval Academy:</p>

<p>12,014 Applicants
1,206 Enrolled</p>

<p>jazzymom-
Cornell is one entity for application purposes but applicants designate the college to which they are applying. There is a difference at Cornell between the NYS statutory colleges and the endowed colleges so I took the liberty of separating the endowed colleges from Cornell overall. There was a small difference in the app ratio. All the colleges at Cornell are excellent.</p>

<p>I thought it might be interesting to potential applicants to see the difference.</p>

<p>So, is there a breakdown on the numbers of applicants to specific colleges?</p>

<p>And do the standards for admission vary according to the college one is applying to, for example, CHE vs. CAS?</p>

<p>Cornell colleges:
<a href="http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000176.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000176.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000177.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000177.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Asked and answered. Thanks, collegehelp.</p>

<p>For comparison, sorted by the number of applications alone:</p>

<p>University of California-Los Angeles 47317
University of California-San Diego 43591
University of California-Berkeley 41796
University of California-Santa Barbara 39857
University of California-Irvine 38429
Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus 34813
New York University 34389
University of Southern California 33760
University of California-Davis 32643
Boston University 31851
Cornell University 30383
Indiana University-Bloomington 29059
Boston College 28850
Rutgers University-New Brunswick 28208
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 27474
The University of Texas at Austin 27237
Baylor University 26514
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 26096
Purdue University-Main Campus 25929
University of California-Riverside 25899
University of California-Santa Cruz 24542
Michigan State University 24436
University of Maryland-College Park 24172
University of Florida 24126
Stanford University 23958
Harvard University 22868
SUNY at Binghamton 22858
University of Pennsylvania 22645
Washington University in St Louis 22428
Carnegie Mellon University 22356
Fordham University 22035
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 21645
Ohio State University-Main Campus 21508
Syracuse University 21225
University of Connecticut 21105
Yale University 21101
University of Delaware 20581
University of Wisconsin-Madison 20436
University of Colorado at Boulder 19857
Columbia University in the City of New York 19851
University of Miami 19809
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 19429
George Washington University 19426
Brown University 19097
Princeton University 18942
Texas A & M University 18778
Northwestern University 18385
University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus 18195
Duke University 18159
University of Washington-Seattle Campus 17808
University of Virginia-Main Campus 17800
Auburn University Main Campus 17688
Tulane University of Louisiana 16967
Johns Hopkins University 16503
Georgetown University 16163
University of Georgia 15924
Miami University-Oxford 15919
American University 15847
Tufts University 15387
University of Iowa 14678
University of Notre Dame 14503
Emory University 14222
Dartmouth College 13938
Marquette University 13375
University of Missouri-Columbia 13102
Vanderbilt University 12911
Clemson University 12784
University of Rochester 12768
The University of Tennessee 12606
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 12445
Lehigh University 12155
College of William and Mary 10854
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 10162
Brigham Young University 9979
Iowa State University 9634
University of Chicago 9538
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus 9259
Saint Louis University-Main Campus 9163
Rice University 8968
Bucknell University 8943
Colgate University 8759
Southern Methodist University 8253
Brandeis University 7640
Case Western Reserve University 7297
Wesleyan University 7242
Wake Forest University 7177
College of the Holy Cross 7066
Oberlin College 7014
Amherst College 6680
Pepperdine University 6661
University of Richmond 6653
Skidmore College 6652
Lafayette College 6364
Middlebury College 6205
Gettysburg College 6126
Vassar College 6075
Williams College 5999
Bowdoin College 5961
Trinity College 5950
Pomona College 5908
Dickinson College 5844
Worcester Polytechnic Institute 5698
Occidental College 5277
University of Puget Sound 5273
Spelman College 5248
Swarthmore College 5242
Clark University 5209
Denison University 5196
Ursinus College 5141
University of Denver 5072
Franklin and Marshall College 5018
Bard College 4980
Macalester College 4967
Hamilton College 4962
Carleton College 4859
Colorado College 4853
Drew University 4816
Muhlenberg College 4703
Colby College 4679
St Lawrence University 4645
Kenyon College 4627
Barnard College 4574
Bates College 4433
Allegheny College 4354
Connecticut College 4278
Hobart William Smith Colleges 4178
Claremont McKenna College 4140
Davidson College 4080
St. Olaf College 4058
Wellesley College 4017
Furman University 3887
Ohio Wesleyan University 3814
Pitzer College 3748
Washington and Lee University 3719
Rhodes College 3686
DePauw University 3624
Wheaton College 3614
Goucher College 3608
California Institute of Technology 3597
Haverford College 3492
Reed College 3365
Smith College 3329
Gustavus Adolphus College 3279
Mount Holyoke College 3194
Randolph-Macon College 3178
The College of Wooster 3169
Grinnell College 3104
Augustana College 3080
Whitman College 3048
Willamette University 2983
Illinois Wesleyan University 2963
Sarah Lawrence College 2801
Stevens Institute of Technology 2783
Hope College 2748
Lawrence University 2599
Harvey Mudd College 2493
Sewanee: The University of the South 2424
Knox College 2418
Birmingham Southern College 2282
St Mary's College of Maryland 2255
Albion College 2204
Yeshiva University 2169
Wheaton College 2160
Centre College 2159
Beloit College 2157
Bryn Mawr College 2106
Kalamazoo College 2095
Wofford College 2028
Scripps College 1969
Juniata College 1958
Southwestern University 1916
Hanover College 1894
Earlham College 1748
Austin College 1708
Virginia Military Institute 1704
Agnes Scott College 1595
College of Saint Benedict 1544
Wabash College 1419
Saint Johns University 1400
Hendrix College 1323
Millsaps College 1253
Wells College 1145
Presbyterian College 1138
Mills College 1098
New College of Florida 1029
Bennington College 1012
Union College 720
Hollins University 634
Sweet Briar College 619
Thomas Aquinas College 222
Principia College 198</p>

<p>popular among women</p>

<p>female applicants divided by female enrollees</p>

<p>Pomona College 19.4
Claremont McKenna College 19.2
Washington University in St Louis 18.5
Yale University 17.5
Columbia University in the City of New York 17.3
Pitzer College 16.9
Swarthmore College 16.2
Cornell University Arts and Sciences College 15.8
Princeton University 15.1
Fordham University 14.7
Amherst College 14.7
Boston College 14.4
Carnegie Mellon University 14.2
Brown University 13.9
Harvard University 13.7
Stanford University 13.6
Johns Hopkins University 13.5
Bowdoin College 13.2
Rice University 13.0
Tulane University of Louisiana 12.9
Tufts University 12.6
Middlebury College 12.5
Colgate University 12.4
Dartmouth College 12.3
Wesleyan University 12.1
University of Southern California 11.9
Cornell University Endowed Colleges 11.8
Haverford College 11.8
Occidental College 11.8
Ursinus College 11.8
American University 11.8
Emory University 11.5
Skidmore College 11.4
Lehigh University 11.2
Duke University 11.2
Williams College 11.0
Dickinson College 10.9
Trinity College 10.9
Hamilton College 10.9
Kenyon College 10.8
University of Rochester 10.8
Georgetown University 10.8
Brandeis University 10.7
SUNY at Binghamton 10.6
Macalester College 10.6
Carleton College 10.6
Pepperdine University 10.5
Bates College 10.5
Lafayette College 10.4
Vassar College 10.4
Wheaton College 10.2
Baylor University 10.1
Cornell University 10.0
Reed College 10.0
University of California-San Diego 10.0
University of Miami 9.9
University of California-Berkeley 9.8
University of California-Santa Barbara 9.5
College of William and Mary 9.5
Oberlin College 9.4
Bucknell University 9.4
California Institute of Technology 9.4
Colorado College 9.3
University of California-Los Angeles 9.3
Bard College 9.3
College of the Holy Cross 9.3
Northwestern University 9.3
Davidson College 9.3
Colby College 9.3
Connecticut College 9.2
Spelman College 9.2
University of Richmond 9.2
Muhlenberg College 8.7
Denison University 8.7
Goucher College 8.7
Scripps College 8.7
Franklin and Marshall College 8.6
Randolph-Macon College 8.5
George Washington University 8.4
Barnard College 8.3
University of California-Irvine 8.2
Harvey Mudd College 8.2
Gettysburg College 8.2
Washington and Lee University 8.1
Grinnell College 8.1
Clark University 8.1
University of Pennsylvania 8.0
Rhodes College 7.9
University of Chicago 7.8
University of Puget Sound 7.8
Lawrence University 7.7
Drew University 7.7
Knox College 7.6
Vanderbilt University 7.6
University of California-Santa Cruz 7.6
Marquette University 7.5
University of Notre Dame 7.5
University of California-Riverside 7.4
Boston University 7.3
Agnes Scott College 7.3
University of California-Davis 7.3
Hanover College 7.2
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 7.2
Whitman College 7.1
Centre College 7.0
Willamette University 7.0
New York University 6.8
Allegheny College 6.8
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 6.8
Wellesley College 6.8
Birmingham Southern College 6.7
University of Connecticut 6.7
Wake Forest University 6.6
Syracuse University 6.6
Southern Methodist University 6.5
Hobart William Smith Colleges 6.4
Wells College 6.4
Beloit College 6.4
Ohio Wesleyan University 6.4
Worcester Polytechnic Institute 6.4
Case Western Reserve University 6.3
University of Maryland-College Park 6.3
St Lawrence University 6.3
Earlham College 6.3
Mount Holyoke College 6.2
Bryn Mawr College 6.0
Mills College 5.9
Furman University 5.9
Saint Louis University-Main Campus 5.8
St. Olaf College 5.7
St Mary's College of Maryland 5.6
Sewanee: The University of the South 5.6
Kalamazoo College 5.6
Illinois Wesleyan University 5.6
The College of Wooster 5.4
University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus 5.3
Rutgers University-New Brunswick 5.3
University of Virginia-Main Campus 5.2
Gustavus Adolphus College 5.2
Austin College 5.2
Wofford College 5.1
Smith College 5.1
Juniata College 5.0
Clemson University 4.9
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 4.9
New College of Florida 4.9
Southwestern University 4.8
Stevens Institute of Technology 4.8
Union College 4.7
Miami University-Oxford 4.7
Presbyterian College 4.7
Bennington College 4.5
Albion College 4.5
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 4.5
Wheaton College 4.4
Auburn University Main Campus 4.4
Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus 4.4
DePauw University 4.3
Virginia Military Institute 4.2
Indiana University-Bloomington 4.2
University of Denver 4.2
Augustana College 4.2
Millsaps College 3.9
Purdue University-Main Campus 3.9
Hendrix College 3.7
University of Colorado at Boulder 3.6
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 3.6
University of Wisconsin-Madison 3.6
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus 3.5
University of Florida 3.5
The University of Texas at Austin 3.5
Ohio State University-Main Campus 3.5
University of Iowa 3.4
University of Washington-Seattle Campus 3.4
Michigan State University 3.3
Hope College 3.2
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 3.1
Hollins University 3.1
The University of Tennessee 3.1
Sweet Briar College 3.1
University of Georgia 3.0
College of Saint Benedict 2.9
University of Missouri-Columbia 2.8
Iowa State University 2.6
Texas A & M University 2.4
Yeshiva University 2.2
Thomas Aquinas College 2.1
Brigham Young University 1.8
Principia College 1.7</p>

<p>Pomona College 15.8
Claremont McKenna College 15.4
Pitzer College 15.4
Swarthmore College 14.4
Amherst College 14.1
Harvey Mudd College 12.7</p>

<p>All four co-ed schools in the Claremont Colleges made the top 6.</p>