<p>So we all know that colleges are selective and whatnot, but I was wondering if someone could answer my question. People keep saying that acceptance rates are dropping because people are applying to more schools than they used to. But at the same time, you can only commit to one college. So shouldn't colleges be admitting more students, because there's an increasing number of applicants who won't even by enrolling in the college? Just curious, Jaimie.</p>
<p>You’re absolutely right. </p>
<p>Let’s look at this mathematically. Let A be the number of applicants to a certain college in a certain year and D be the number of applicants who are accepted.</p>
<p>The acceptance rate would be D/A.</p>
<p>Theoretically, let’s say that next year 2 more applicants applied than the previous year and 1 more was accepted.</p>
<p>The acceptance rate would be (D+1)/(A+2).</p>
<p>And the next year, 3 more applied and 2 more were accepted.</p>
<p>The acceptance rate would be (D+2)/(A+3).</p>
<p>And so on . . . </p>
<p>Now let’s actually plug in numbers for A and D. Let A = 20 and D = 5</p>
<p>For each year, we would have 5/20, 6/22, and 7/23 of applicants accepted respectively. </p>
<p>As you can see, the acceptance rates are 25%, 27%, and 30%, respectively. </p>
<p>So why are the numbers growing? Shouldn’t they be shrinking because more applicants are applying than those who can be accepted?</p>
<p>As the numerator and denominator increase at the same time, the denominator will always increase at a faster rate (assuming more applicants apply the next year); therefore, in order for colleges to protect their selectivity, they must accept a fewer proportion of people compared to the year before. Notice how I said proportion instead of “amount”. </p>
<p>So what does this show? It shows that colleges must in fact accept a greater number of students, but a smaller percentage than the year before in order to maintain their selectivity. </p>
<p>The factor the college considers most when deciding how many offers to make is the SIR rate; “how many students offered admission will attend?”. Berkeley has the highest “statement of intent to register” rate of all Ucs and it is rising. (also sometimes called yield) More students offered admission are attending, which restricts their ability to increase the number of offers.
<a href=“http://www.ucop.edu/news/factsheets/2014/frosh_trsirs_table1.1.pdf”>http://www.ucop.edu/news/factsheets/2014/frosh_trsirs_table1.1.pdf</a> </p>
<p>The overall yield rate can be misleading. Yield rates are higher for the admits at the bottom of the stat range of admits, since most students will choose the most selective school that admitted them if other constraints (e.g. cost) do not prevent that. I.e. a student who considers Berkeley a reach is more likely to attend than one who considers Berkeley a low match. Any additional admits will likely be from the bottom of the stat range of admits, and therefore will have a higher yield rate than the overall yield rate.</p>