<p>do brigham young</p>
<p>Brigham Young was in the list, dead last (Brigham Young University 1.7), but they are a special interest school and probably attract fewer applications but enroll a high percentage of those applicants. Same goes for Yeshiva.</p>
<p>Just a hunch.</p>
<p>The application numbers you mention, although only a year or two old, are vastly outdated for a great number of schools. For instance, you use the figure of 6205 for Middlebury. This year, Middlebury received more than 7,800 applications.</p>
<p>Yes, these numbers are outdated, but useful for comparison down the road, when this year's data is available. Tulane, for example, nearly doubled its apps to 30,000 and UCLA was over 50,000. (Perhaps all the top publics saw a jump due to changes in parents' financial security.) </p>
<p>And the universities that sweetened the financial aid policy to encourage more middle-income and upper-middle income students to apply probably also saw a jump. And did the elimination of ED at some colleges cause a spurt in ED apps to those that still offer it? This year's data will be very interesting when it comes out.</p>
<p>I thought NYU would be higher, if not number one. In terms of popularity, that is.</p>
<p>Interesting data to look at, but really shows very little about the school's desirability. The UCs obviously have thousands more applicants than other state schools, because with a single application to the whole system it's incredibly easy to go "Hmm, I like Berkeley, but just in case I don't get in, how about UCI, and I like the beach so how about UCSB, and UCSC is really close to Berkeley, and UCLA's just about the same caliber" and wind up with many cross applications. I'm starting to agree that yield gives a better picture of desirability, which should be more valued than popularity. Case in point: Gonzaga's applications went up by ~40% after they got into the Great Eight in 1999. Nothing against Gonzaga, but raw applications and admit rates don't tell the whole story. Harvard and BYU (for different reasons) will continue to have the highest enrollment rates for years to come, and that proves they're both filling their niches very well.</p>
<p>I'll say it again, yield is not a good index of popularity. It is affected by too many other factors such as competition, ED games, special interests such as religion, finances, and so on. Yield results in very weird ranking.</p>
<p>Based on yield, Brigham Young, Yeshiva, Thomas Aquinas, Principia, Texas A&M, VMI are among the top 20 schools in the country.</p>
<p>...and then there's San Diego State: 46,718 freshman applicants, 5601 enrollees.</p>