<p>I keep wondering why the acceptance rate for Columbia is so low. But recently, several of my friends have been telling me that they are applying to NYU. Moreover, they are all planning to give a shot at Columbia since the supplement essays are some what similar. </p>
<p>Do you guys think that this is why Columbia's acceptance rate is so low? A large percentage of students who apply to NYU also apply to Columbia?</p>
<p>I don’t think the adcom specifically made the acceptance rate so low so as to weed out the NYU applicants. The thing is that most colleges, like Columbia, have experienced a significant increase in the number of applications. This phenomenon is consistent across many schools as the Internet and other resources have made it easier for students to apply to many colleges at the same time. So colleges have reduced their acceptance rates because they know students are applying to several other schools and are therefore less likely to enroll if admitted. Also colleges spend a lot of money and resources trying to recruit accepted students. So lowering the acceptance rate when more students apply is a quick and easy way to cut costs.</p>
<p>Now you have to look at this from an ivy-league POV. These schools all compete with each other to boast lower acceptance rates. A college can then lobby to their admitted students, telling them that they are “part of a very few number of students admitted, part of an elite group of incoming freshmen.” This now becomes attractive to prospective students as well. </p>
<p>NYU and Columbia share the same stomping ground: NYC. So persons who apply to NYU probably might apply to Columbia because it is in New York as well.</p>
<p>I think highly prestigious, super famous schools have such low acceptance rates for the same reason: they lack self-selectivity. At highly publicized schools like Columbia, Harvard, etc. tons of obviously unqualified applicants decide to “throw in applications” to dream schools that aren’t within their reach so the acceptance rates plummet. I’m guessing the NYU students you’ve mentioned are in that group, as NYU (Stern and Tisch aside), while selective and prestigious in its own right, is certainly not in the same league as Columbia. It’s also common that parents urge their unqualified kids to apply to uber selective schools because they tend to be a bit more optimistic and less informed about the admissions process.</p>
<p>If your school offers Naviance then the graphs of students accepted from your school can show you a visual representation of this. When you look at top tier liberal arts schools and less commercialized prestigious top universities you’ll see that almost every applicant is extremely qualified, while if you look at graphs for big name schools you’ll see quite a few outliers. That’s why Columbia has such a minuscule acceptance rate: it’s such a popular “dream school” with its location, prestige, and media attention that tons of unqualified applicants decide to give it a shot just for kicks.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that if we took out those outliers Columbia would have a 50% acceptance rate, as there are still tons of fantastic applicants who are rejected. But I’m sure if you excluded every obviously unqualified applicant from the overall percentage the acceptance rate would go up at least 10%.</p>