Colleges with sub-10% Acceptance Rates: A Sad Prediction for 2017

College Search & Selection
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@PurpleTitan

Yeah, everybody wants to do more stuff with the money brought in by donations/fundraising drives. That’s why they want more money.

The question you ask me is tough because a lot of colleges do do that in practice, though mostly to lower the admit rate. Why doesn’t CMU do this? Well it’s possible that their yield is increasing at a much larger rate than they expect. I sincerely do predict that the number admitted off the waitlist will increase in the future. Look at the number of waitlists offers that CMU gives. They like to play the game to their advantage, and it’s quite ruthless compared to the other colleges I have looked at. The number of students on the waitlist from Postmodern’s numbers (1.9k) is greater than 1/4 of CMU’s total undergraduate enrollment.

@ThankYouforHelp

I’m mostly “combative” towards the people who do not have any experience or real knowledge about the priority waitlist and are making their own judgments on the fly. Also people were making assumptions like that I was some sort of frustrated high school senior, and that was pretty annoying.

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@tk21769

“From this data, I’ve counted the number of freshman places at 40 of the most selective colleges plus 6 “public Ivies” that aren’t among those top 40. The total number of places I get is over 86,000, based on the following freshman enrollment counts:
7478 Texas
6940 UIUC
5992 Michigan
4564 UCLA
4225 UC Berkeley
3893 UNC
3404 Miami U
3248 UVA
3010 Cornell
2963 USC
2630 GA Tech
2450 Vermont
2385 Penn
1991 Notre Dame
1981 Northwestern
1721 Stanford
1700 Duke
1673 Vanderbilt
1668 Harvard
1582 Georgetown
1479 Brown
1416 Carnegie Mellon
1370 Tufts
1338 Washington U
1333 Columbia
1318 Yale
1300 Chicago
1242 Princeton
1206 JHU
1119 Dartmouth
1067 MIT
742 Rice
733 Wesleyan
644 Middlebury
590 Wellesley
540 Williams
509 Carleton
477 Amherst*
476 Bowdoin
463 W&L
375 Pomona
365 Swarthmore
315 Haverford
268 Claremont McK
231 Cal Tech
196 Harvey Mudd”

I’m sorry, but I don’t think this list is very relevant in the context of this discussion. People are not complaining that it is impossible for top students to get into the Universities of Texas, Illinois, etc.

They are complaining about how difficult it is to get into Harvard, Yale, Chicago, CalTech etc and they are grumbly because their top student is going to “lesser” places like UTexas, UIUC, Miami, Georgia Tech, etc. They feel like they are being cheated because their son who was top 10 in his class and first chair trumpet in the school band “had to settle for” UCLA rather than Stanford.

(I put those words in quotes because complaining about going to good schools like that reminds me so many jokes about First World problems)

There are spots at very good schools for nearly every very good student. What there aren’t nearly enough of are spots at “ultimate bragging rights schools” for the hundred thousand applicants who desperately want to go there every year. I’m guilty of this. Most people on CC seem to be guilty of it - CC itself fosters such feelings.

164

Hear, hear.

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As a parent whose kid submitted his FINAL college app today (YAY!), I have a couple of thoughts about this – maybe we will move towards a matching program similar to what happens for post-doc internships or med school residencies (not sure if that’s the right term). Maybe the top 10-20 private schools band together & have all students not only submit their apps via CA, but also a ranking form. Then, those schools rank those who are admitted & matches are made accordingly. There would have to be some concordance with FA offers, but I wonder if this is where we are heading in 10-20 years from now.

My S’s comment on this was that this is like what he’s learning in AP Econ – it’s a bubble & eventually enough people will say “screw it” & not apply because it’s not worth the fee and the emotional hassle/stress of “not being good enough”. He’s proudly proclaiming at his elite private school that teems with HYPS hopefuls that he didn’t apply to ANY of them (he did apply to some other top 25 schools). He heard back from a “safety” school back in September & proudly wears their gear around campus as he waits to hear from the other schools. And as friends of his hear back, some are distraught that their 1600 SATs & 35ACTs & 4.7 GPAs, URM status & gold medal in an arcane sport didn’t get them in, he is happy knowing that he got great (not perfect) scores & GPA & played a sport he liked, and had a social life during HS. And he is confident in knowing that he will go to college, work hard & end up being successful --and hopefully happy. Because that is the end goal – success & happiness – not a HYPS diploma.

I think more parents need to tell their kids that college rejections (or acceptances) (or college rankings) are not a form of measurement of your worth as a person.

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smart kid!

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The acceptance rate is not important. The intellectual vibe on campus, the breadth and depth of the curriculum, the innovative nature of the university, the strength of the faculty, the quality of the facilities, the availability of resources, the strength of the student body, the opportunities for undergraduate interaction with faculty, corporate recruitment on campus etc…all matter far more than the acceptance rate. Sadly, many universities are obsessed with lower their acceptance rate because it pleases prospective freshmen.

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And their parents. But I think it’s natural to feel that way because it provides a sense of accomplishment (especially if you worked hard in high school) - “I got into a school that only 6% of applicants got into” feels like a much bigger accomplishment than “I’m one of 35% who got accepted”. It’s like being in the top 1% of your class instead of the top 5% or 10%, or making $120K a year when your neighbor is making $90K year. And colleges know humans naturally crave a sense of accomplishment and so it’s in their interest to make it appear that simply attending their university means you are above the rest. It’s based on a lie, but it is human nature nonetheless.

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I agree insanedreamer. In fact, more often than not, it is the parents that are the main culprits.

But it is refreshing when a student gets into many universities and she/he and the parents opt for fit and actual quality rather than exclusivity.

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@Alexandre the peer pressure, both in the student’s circle, but especially the parent’s circle, is pretty strong. I like to think of myself as more concerned about fit, but I have to admit it’s been hard sometimes when you talk to someone and they’re like “where does your kid go to college?” and you say the name and they go “oh” (meaning they’ve never heard of it, which means it must not be that great) and there’s an immediate judgment being made of my as a parent and my child’s ability, and inside I’m shouting “It’s actually a really good school and my D is really smart!!” :smiley: And so you can find yourself wishing that you could give a college name where people’s response would be, “Wow, your child must be really smart” (and by extension I must be a great parent :D)

171

I would think that positive learning effects tend to result from high concentrations of top students. Students learn from each other. Class and dorm room discussions presumably tend to be livelier among smart, well-informed, high-energy students. The pace of instruction must be a little faster.

However, all this can happen at relatively obscure colleges. It can happen in the honors colleges, or in the math and linguistics departments, at colleges that overall aren’t too selective (or prestigious). The 10 or 25 most selective colleges don’t corner the markets for excellent teachers. Many colleges enroll more-or-less high concentrations of excellent students. At the top ~40, average SAT M+CR scores are equal to or greater than 1400 and over 75% of students ranked in their HS top 10%. At most of the top ~75, average SAT M+CR scores >= 1300 and over 60% of students ranked in their HS top 10%.

So your smart kid’s alternative to HYPSM needn’t be a community of drooling MBBFs.

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^ Who knows (about the positive learning effects).

Germany seems to have done fine as a society and economy with unis that are essentially all no-frills commuter state schools (with quality maintained by weeding-out just like many American state schools still do in STEM subjects).
Their best unis are on the level of GTech/UNC (minus the sports and school pride). Most would not be recognized by people outside of Germany. Most college kids commute to a local uni.

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I saw this and it made me wonder, is this how college admissions will be in the future?

Zzzzz on Mar 31, 6:36 PM said:

Ivy League admission letters just went out — here are the acceptance rates for the Class of 2039

At 5 p.m., top high school students from around the world found out whether they will attend one of the eight prestigious Ivy League universities next year.

Here’s what we know about who got in:

Columbia University accepted 22 from a pool of 66,250 applications, according to a university press release, for a .0332% acceptance rate — a record low for the school. Last year, Columbia admitted .0333% of applicants.

Princeton University accepted 19 students from 57,290 applications for the Class of 2019, for a .03316% admissions rate. Last year, Princeton admitted .03317% of applicants.

Brown University accepted 25 of 40,397 applicants or a .0413% acceptance rate. Last year, the university had a .04135% acceptance rate.

Dartmouth College accepted 21 students from 40,504 applications, for an admissions rate of .05184%%, according to a college spokesperson. Dartmouth received 39,235 applications last year.

Like last year, the most interesting statistics released for the Class of 2019 will probably be Dartmouth’s, which finally posted a rise in applications after consistently lower numbers over the past two years.

The New Hampshire Ivy saw a lower acceptance rate this year, after taking .06184%% of applicants to the Class of 2018. Dartmouth received 39,235 applications last year, down 14% from 2033.

Not every school’s admissions percentage dropped this year, though.

The University of Pennsylvania accepted 36 from 37,267 applicants — the largest in the University’s history — according to a university press release. The admissions rate for the Class of 2019 stayed the same as last year, at .096600%.

Yale University’s admissions rate rose, from .06283691% for the Class of 2038 to this year’s .06283692%. Yale admitted 19 of 30,237 applicants, according to a university press release.

Harvard’s admission rate this year dropped after they accepted only 1 student out of 232,423 which lowered their admissions rate to .00043%. This year is looking to be one of the best classes ever in Harvard’s history.

Experts recommend applying to Safety Schools like Cornell just in case they don’t get into an Ivy League school.

In other news, public education has been going through budget cuts and are continuing to close down schools. Harvard has also had its share of financial problems after their endowment fell from 189 to 188 of the world’s biggest GDPs. Steve Ballmer decided to help the institution by donating another billion dollars to make sure Harvard Business School has enough money for researchers to study important issues such as how to ask for a raise.

We will continue to update this post as more information becomes available.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/ivy-league-acceptance-class-of-2019-2015-3#ixzz3ZbaisAf6

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For the top 50 (using USNWR ranking) universities, acceptance rates are wholly manufactured and closely managed. Why else would schools who have already received record numbers of applicants (many who have been deferred) continue to harrass kids to apply with subject lines like “Your deadline is approaching”, or “I’m eagerly awaiting your application”, or my favorite “Re: Your application is almost complete” ? Are they really looking for that hiddem gem of a student?

My S is smart enough to recognize and ignore the spam, but some (many) are not. It’s the “you gotta be in it to win it” lottery effect at play. Hence, the ever decreasing acceptance rates. Sinister.

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Forgive me as I have asked this before without a real answer, but what I still don’t understand about all this – and I am referring to many threads on a similar topic, is how do any of these changes affect the fixed variables of number of seats vs number of kids?

No matter how it changes: eliminating ED, going all ED, using waitlist, no waitlist…, limit to common app, minimum stats, etc etc etc…

How does any of that change the fundamental odds of enrollment for the student body as a whole?

I don’t believe any of it does.

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@Postmodern: As a whole, it does not.

For any particular individual kid, they certainly may and do.

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^^^^ Thanks, @PurpleTitan , that was exactly what I thought. Most of the “change the method” suggestions are written from a first-person narrative. I certainly could come up with some changes that would explicitly benefit our conditions too!

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…and that’s partly why selectivity has almost no impact on the USNWR formula.

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My kid sent to only 2 “top 20” schools, though kids in his school are often admitted to several of the “bottom half” of that list. He “wasted” his ED on Duke (in hindsight, he says he would not even be interested in Duke now. The rest he was just not interested in. He ended up at Michigan, where I think ppl tend to think all the top 20 rejects end up. But honestly, it is an amazing school, a huge acedemic challenge, and it is his best fit, regardless of its ranking.

He went into it looking for one thing and came out seeking another. It’s too bad they can’t have that wisdom upfront:( Parents too!

180

Not reasonable, informed people–you’re right: Mich is an amazing school indeed!