How does a school’s acceptance rate impact its desirability among potential applicants?
Does it affect your interest in a school to hear it is difficult to gain admisstion? Last year, it was easier to get into Exeter than Andover. Does that make Andover or Exeter more desirable in your eyes? Does the fact that Thacher is even tougher to get into than either of these schools make you want to apply to Thacher or make you want to avoid it?
Very curious as to how people feel about this…
Wouldn’t quite say Thacher is tougher to get into than PA/PEA. Yes, Thacher had an 11% acceptance rate, but hard to say the pool of applicants is as strong as the latter 2 schools (based on SSAT and SAT scores and matriculation success).
Applying to Thacher so not knocking it at all.
11/12/12/13/15 rates (I believe) for Thacher, Andover, Groton, Deerfield, Choate. Seems hard to distinguish statistically.
For our family, acceptance rates played virtually no role in deciding which schools appealed to us the most. For us, it was all about identifying the best fit and finding an intentional culture of balance and kindness.
We were looking purely at the quality of academics and the culture of the schools, especially around values. Selectivity wasn’t a criteria. You never know what the path not taken would have been, but choosing on this basis had a great outcome for DS.
A friend’s kid recently chose the same way, turning down a TSAO school that had recruited him, so they also didnt value selectivity over fit.
I do think, though, that for a lot of families, especially ones who are less familiar with the BS world, that selectivity signals to them that lots of other people endorse their choice and that it’s a good one. Given the $ and the fact that you’re sending your beloved kid there, it’s not bizarre that getting confirmation that you’re not making a crazy choice matters.
I was talking to an admission officer about acceptance rates and how misleading they can be. Usually school post acceptance rates as only one number (their overall acceptance rate). If you are applying as a domestic 9th grader, those rates are going to be higher than the ones posted and if you are an international 11th grader they are going to be much lower. Groton has a small 8th grade program. Does that affect their admission numbers? What about the most well known schools that attract a larger number of international students?
Just a reminder that an acceptance rate really has nothing to do with what the acceptance rate is of people like you, as it is just an overall average. I really like what colleges do with scatterplots of applicants based on similar test scores or other demographics.
Sometimes fundraising documents or the detailed documents prepared for heads of school searches contain tidbits not found on school websites. That’s how we learned that the acceptance rate at Thacher for students requiring financial aid is just 9 percent.
Admission rates played no role in DC’s personal ranking of schools. DC’s ranking was all about fit and personal preference. Consideration factors included geography, size of student body, perceived friendliness of student body and school administration, school vibe (e.g., sporty, academic, artsy, etc.), median SSAT, median SAT, matriculation, role of religion at the school, boarding/day student ratios, proximity to town, proximity to major city, classes offered, extracurricular activities offered, quality of facilities, dress code, lights out policy, internet policy, socioeconomic diversity, student and alumni reviews, etc. DC had a loose awareness of admission rates, but they were neither a motivator nor a deterrent for a particular school. If anything, the low admissions rates motivated DC to apply to multiple schools.
Personally, I don’t view admissions rates as being very useful for students selecting between schools, as there are multiple factors that could significantly affect admission rates but don’t necessarily speak to how good a school is at preparing students for college and life beyond college, or even how much a particular school may be in demand relative to other schools that are not similarly situated (e.g., schools that have larger/smaller student bodies, schools that are in different geographies, etc.). I think most applicants are looking for an excellent education, and excellent opportunities, with a group of kids who are similar to them in ways that they regard as important, yet diverse enough in other ways, such that the students will challenge and learn from one another. I don’t see admissions rates factoring much into that calculus. My one caveat is that if a school had an admissions rate that seemed abnormally high relative to other similarly situated schools, that might give me pause and motivate me to try to understand why.
Admission/acceptance rates had no bearing whatsoever on our decisions. It was programs, academic strength is certain areas and location.
Everything is in context. Saying that it’s easier to get into Exeter than Andover is, in my mind, akin to saying that Kourtney is less rich than Khloe. While both statements may be true, they basically should get filed under "Like it will make any difference.: 
I have written this so many times, but…there is no appreciable difference among the top 25 schools in the quality of education that your child will receive. Making comparisons is a fool’s trade. It’s all about the non-academic factors, the fit, the highly personal match of school to family. For a number of years on this site, and I still see it now and again, a percentage of kids and parents struggle to discriminate between stats and what’s best for their child, the former often outweighing the latter. If you are stats-obsessed, at least study yield, attrition, independent school gender project results etc, the sorts of outcomes that give you a much better window into the health of the community.
Again, this is highly personal, but when we looked at Schools, the questions that we thought were more important than any other were “what will our child be like after four years here? Will he be happy and well-equipped to help others and himself? Will he be confident, but not arrogant? Will he be resourceful and persistent? Will he be the kind of kid you’d want by your side in times of trouble? Will his appreciation for his good fortune and its larger responsibilities grow? Will helping others become second nature? Will he be modest? Will he put more energy into the world than he takes out?” These were the sorts of questions we asked. Superior and challenging academics, great college outcomes, were table stakes and nothing more. The acceptance rate was considered only as an admission’s factor pointing to desirability on some level; it was not a principal factor in the decision-making.
One of the things that I loved about @SevenDad’s post about his boarding school selection process was how he put questions about fit above any other and was not swayed by this site’s too frequent obsession with minute statistical differences. And you know what? Many, many new families discovered the greatness of St. Andrews as a result and found their children incredibly enriched, empowered and happy.