<p>The only ones fooled by these shenanigans are those foolish enough to give any weight at all to rankings.</p>
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<p>I implied no such thing. You’re completely misreading what I said. I said it was a mistake–either Princeton made a mistake in the data it submitted to US News, or US News made a transcription error. Neither of those suggests intentional manipulation.</p>
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<p>Here’s a link to the US News 2012 online edition:</p>
<p><a href=“http://premium.usnews.com/best-colleges[/url]”>http://premium.usnews.com/best-colleges</a></p>
<p>The data will be masked unless you pay for a subscription. But it’s there, in plain black and white, I’ve checked it 4 or 5 times and it shows Princeton with 99% of its freshmen in the top 10% of their HS class. That’s for the class that entered in the fall of 2010. Perhaps others with subscriptions can vouch for me. Or you can purchase a subscription and check it for yourself if you like. </p>
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<p>No, percentage of the freshman class in the top 10% of their HS class is far more important than admit rate in the US News ranking. “Student selectivity” accounts for 15% of the total; that’s broken down into 3 components, SAT/ACT scores (50% of “selectivity” = 7.5% of total rating), percentage of freshmen in top 10% of HS class (40% of “selectivity” = 6% of total ranking), and admit rate (10% of selectivity = 1.5% of total ranking). As you can see, admit rate is a small, almost trivial factor in the total ranking. Percentage of freshman in top 10% of HS class is actually one of the larger factors. The only factors that are larger are SAT/ACT scores (7.5%), Peer Assessment (15%), faculty compensation (7%), average graduation rate (16%), financial resources (10%), and “graduation rate performance” (7.5%). None dwarf the “top 10%” factor. It’s a very important component.</p>
<p>What US News doesn’t tell us is exactly how they assign a score to a school’s “top 10%” figure. Depending on their methodology, and how they do rounding, it might or might not be enough to move the needle on Princeton’s overall rating, i.e., to bump it from 100 to 99, which would be enough to bump Princeton down to #2. But of course, we’ll never see that, because US News will be out with new rankings soon based on data for the class entering in 2011.</p>
<p>For the record, here are how the top 30 research universities stack up in percent of freshmen in top 10% of HS class for the class that enrolled in the fall of 2010, as reported in US News (and with Princeton’s corrected figure from its Common Data Set):
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Princeton<a href=“as%20reported%20in%20US%20News”>/B</a> 99%
MIT 98%
UC Berkeley 98%
Columbia 97%
UCLA 97%
Yale 97%
Caltech 96%
Penn 96%
WUSTL 96%
Duke 95%
Harvard 95%
**Princeton<a href=“per%202010-11%20Common%20Data%20Set”>/B</a> 95%
Brown 93%
Michigan 92%
Georgetown 91%
Northwestern 91%
Cornell 90%
Dartmouth 90%
Stanford 90%
UVA 90%
Chicago 89%
USC 88%
Johns Hopkins 87%
Notre Dame 87%
Rice 85%
Tufts 85%
Vanderbilt 85%
Wake Forest 80%
UNC Chapel Hill 78%
Carnegie Mellon 72%</p>
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<p>I think it is pretty clear that USNews does not spend much time verifying the data before posting them. A few years ago, they published a figure that blatantly false for Stanford. It was also obvious that this figure contributed to Stanford being listed behind Columbia. Bob Morse and his staff promptly changed the figure on the online version, but never made any changes to the error in the rankings. </p>
<p>As far as the accuracy of the information reported, I would say that every entry that pretends to have an above 95 percent rank is suspect, if not highly suspect. For instance, it is known that the UC figures for class ranks are mere estimates. The USNews could not care less about the accuracy of the numbers reported, as they have routinely accepted the deflated admission rates at Berkeley that obfuscate a large portion of their admitted class (Spring admits.) </p>
<p>The differences between the released data by UCOP and the CDS/USNews are a few keystokes away. Something that Bob Morse and his staff obviously ignores as they continue in a policy to level the playing field in every possible way. The schools have, of course, discovered the particular numbers that can be fudged in total impunity. Ask schools that did climb in the “polls” a la Chicago and Columbia. Well, let me correct that, it is mostly a Do not ask; Do not tell! </p>
<p>List of Usual Suspects: </p>
<p>Princeton (as reported in US News) 99%
MIT 98%
UC Berkeley 98%
Columbia 97%
UCLA 97%
Yale 97%
Caltech 96%
Penn 96%
WUSTL 96%
Duke 95%
Harvard 95%
Princeton (per 2010-11 Common Data Set) 95%</p>
<p>To give some perspective on the selective reporting of class ranks, one could be well-served to look at the University of Texas’ data.</p>
<p>As it is well known, UT at Austin has admitted students automatically if they graduated in the top 8 to 10 percent of the HS. Suffice it to say that for many Texans, the story is that they HAVE to be in the top of their class to make it – a story that is usually embellished in the Texas Surburban Shangroi-Las and Bubba Central high schools. However, it is most defintely a state where the class ranks DO matter. </p>
<p>And yet, what are the numbers? </p>
<p>C10 Percent in top tenth of high school graduating class 73.0%
C10 Percent in top quarter of high school graduating class 90.9%
C10 Percent in top half of high school graduating class 98.3%</p>
<p>Does anyone really believe that the numbers posted by Clinton (correctly reproduced) are accurate? Does anyone believe that the differences between some of the public schools on that list with Texas are … real? </p>
<p>We have a name for that kind of thing of Texas. It starts with horse and ends with manure!</p>
<p>Given that most private schools and magnet schools don’t report class rank and are therefore excluded one would hope that the percentages for those schools would be in the high 90’s. I realize our private school is just one example but here more kids got into the top 6 or 7 ranked schools from below the top 10% than above it. My guess is that is not unusual for other private schools.</p>
<p>bclintonk, I know that admit rate is a very insignificant factor in the ratings, that’s why I said
But the top decile percentage is also insignificant when taken in context. It’s true that we don’t know the specifics of how they rate that factor, but how can a five percentage point difference in a measure that only makes up 6% of the overall score be more than minuscule. I take your word for the figures appearing the premium US News database and I will try to ask them about it and will let you know if I get any reply.</p>
<p>As to my misinterpretation of your intent, these are the statements that suggest you are accusing Princeton of selective reporting.</p>
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<p>With regard to the last, Princeton obviously does look and take beyond the top 10% as it has reported that only 93% were in that category in the latest CDS. Any of these top schools could have 100% in that category if they chose to, but clearly they feel other considerations (mostly athletic strength probably) are more important than trying to maximize every data point for US News. Even if all their applicants reported class rank, do you think that figure would be much lower than it is? I doubt it, since most of their athletes and legacy admits are extremely strong students anyway, and the kids from Andover and the like probably make up most of that 7%.</p>
<p>The level of specificity is ridiculous. Who cares what percentage are in the top 10% since there are too many factors to say how meaningful that ranking is. How about just saying that you have to be 1) really smart, 2) really hard working, 3) be the child of someone extremely important or a celebrity in your own right, and/or 4) cheat effectively without being caught to participate meaningfully in our academic lottery. Given the topic of this thread, it may start to matter less and less whether or not you actually get caught for no. 4 given the behavior of the institutions making the decisions.</p>
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<p>I do not know what the intent of BClinton is, but to anyone who has spent time looking at that data for a while, it should beyond any doubt that Princeton --as well as all its peers-- has been reporting its numbers on the most selective basis possible. </p>
<p>The only discussion should be about the degree of that “selective reporting” and which categories are “omitted” when convenient.</p>
<p>In the end, it does not make Princeton any worse than the others. When numbers are getting close to 100 percent, it becomes harder and harder to make them believable. Something, by the way, that a few schools seem determined to challenge, as they are increasingly getting away with their shenanigans.</p>
<p>It is not because Lee Stetson “retired” that his legacy has changed. While he jokingly stated that none of his numbers would survive an audit, his peers knew all too well that they were in the same boat. They probably all hate USNews with a passion, and will do everything in their power to look as pretty as possible, even when pushing the envelope as far as humanly possible.</p>
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<p>Sorry, xiggi, you’re going to need to do a lot more to convince me that the quoted California numbers are inaccurate. Or the private college numbers, for that matter.</p>
<p>Consider your Texas comparison in light of the following.</p>
<p>Texas high schools graduated about 265,000 students in 2010, so in principle, 26,500 of them graduated in the top 10% of their class (setting aside the complication that some schools don’t rank). According to the U.S. Dept. of Education, the University of Texas-Austin enrolled 6,409 Texans that fall. Assuming the in-state and overall percentages in the top 10% of their HS class were the same, we’d expect 4,870 of the enrolled freshmen from Texas to be in the top 10% of their HS class, based on UT’s reported figure of 76% in the top 10%. That means 18.4% of all the top 10%-ers in the State of Texas enrolled as freshmen at UT-Austin that year.</p>
<p>California high schools graduated about 405,000 students in 2010, so in principle, 40,500 of them graduated in the top 10% of their HS class (with the same caveat). According to the same source, the University of California-Berkeley enrolled 3,004 Californians in its freshman class in 2010. Again assuming the in-state percentage is the same as the overall percentage, we’d expect 2,944, or 98% of them, to be in the top 10% of their HS class. That represents 7.3% of all the Californians who graduated in the top 10% of their HS class .</p>
<p>So why, exactly, is it supposed to be so hard to believe that UC-Berkeley could enroll 7.3% of the top 10% HS graduates in California, when UT –Austin enrolled 18.4% of the top 10%-ers in Texas? I should imagine Berkeley could reach 100% if it wanted to. And so could Harvard, Yale, or Princeton.</p>
<p>But wait (you say), UCLA enrolled even more of them. And it’s true, with a slightly larger freshman class than Berkeley, UCLA enrolled 4,046 Californians in its 2010 freshman class, of whom it says 96%, or 3,884, were in the top 10%. That’s 9.6% of all the top 10%-ers in the state. Add that to UC Berkeley’s total and you get . . . wait, that’s still only 16.9% for the two California flagships combined, which is still less than the 18.4% of top 10% Texans that UT-Austin enrolled.</p>
<p>And UT-Austin wasn’t operating in a vacuum, either. Its big rival, Texas A&M, enrolled 7,825 Texas freshmen, of whom 50%, or 3,912, were in the top 10%, representing another 14.2% of Texas’ top 10%-ers. Add the UT total to the TAMU total and it represents 33.2% of Texas’ top 10%-ers, or roughly twice the combined Berkeley-UCLA percentage.</p>
<p>So I don’t find the California numbers at all implausible, especially since I’ve always heard that HS grades and class rank are extremely critical factors in the UC admissions system. They just have a huge base of in-state students to choose from. That they would choose almost exclusively from among those in the top 10% of their HS class would come as no surprise. And it also doesn’t surprise me that other top publics place great weight on those metrics, and by and large get the results they want on that score.</p>
<p>Re: selective reporting. Well, yes, I guess I am at least raising the question of selective reporting when Princeton says barely over 1 in 4 of its freshmen had a HS class rank, yet Harvard says nearly 7 in 10 if its freshmen had a class rank. That just looks suspicious to me. Is that an accusation? Well, I’d call it a “question.” Does anyone have an explanation other than selective reporting?</p>
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<p>Convincing you that the admission rate reported to USNews by Cal is NOT correct? Again, all you need to do is applying the same investigation skills displayed above to the UCOP data and the premium report of USNews. So, that is an easy one. </p>
<p>Or do you doubt that the 98 percent of top ten percenters reported by Cal is not a very generous (and self serving) estimate? Do YOU really believe that such a number is as realistic as the … 90 percent reported by its Bay neighbor? Do you think Cal compiles the numbers to arrive at the 98 percent … ESTIMATE? And do you believe that UCLA reported line “Percent of total first-time, first-year (freshmen) students who submitted high school class rank: 100%” is realistic? Not a single student from a non-ranking school enrolled?</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.aim.ucla.edu/CDS/cdsForm.asp#cdsC[/url]”>http://www.aim.ucla.edu/CDS/cdsForm.asp#cdsC</a></p>
<p>There is no real need to try to dig numbers to support our mutual speculation here. From my vantage point, the only way the schools can come up with such numbers is by applying very creative “control” systems and drop all numbers they happen not to like too much. Or by simply throwing a good guesstimate at the survey an be done with! Which is what happens at the more than a few places. </p>
<p>PS I am not sure about which part of the debate we do … disagree!</p>
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<p>I agree this shows that there is no set criteria for answering the question of how many students report class rank. Part of it may be the interpretation of what that means? My kids’ high school did not rank but did report deciles/quartiles. Maybe this is considered as reporting rank by some colleges but not by others. Some schools may ask counselors to estimate when there is no official ranking available and may include that–others may not. Wouldn’t it be incumbent upon US News or whoever controls the CDS questionaire to specify how this question should be answered?</p>
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<p>Could be partly that, but if they come up with such wildly different interpretations it suggests US News’ “objective” data isn’t really so objective at all and isn’t giving you clear cross-school comparisons.</p>
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<p>I do think it’s implausible that UC-Berkeley gets class ranks for 100% of its freshmen. It’s equally implausible when Penn makes that same claim. So their figures on percent in top 10% are clearly estimates, not actual counts. But I don’t find it at all implausible that UC-Berkeley could have a higher percentage of its freshmen coming from the top 10% than Stanford. It’s just a question of different admissions priorities. The mission of public universities is to educate a large number of the state’s top students. Naturally they’re going to look to the top 10% first, and in a state like California with a pool of 40,000+ graduating in the top 10% of their class, the public flagship could very easily make top 10% an effective cutoff. A private school like Stanford has different priorities: its entering class is going to be more hand-crafted and . . . well, precious, for want of a better term. Test scores, ECs, essays, unique talents, signal accomplishments will matter more, as will finding the right balance and mix of candidates from different backgrounds and with different talents and interests. Grades and class rank might matter slightly less (though they’re still important, as evidenced by Stanford’s 90%-in-top-10% figure). Stanford also has an enormous number of scholarship athletes, possibly more than any school in the country, and while no doubt many were in the top 10% of their HS class, each time they dip into the second or third decile to get an athlete they want, it has a bigger impact on Stanford’s overall class composition, because the class is so much smaller than at Cal.</p>
<p>Many public flagships report a high percentage of their freshman were in the top 10% of their HS class. Are we supposed to think they’re all lying? And where, pray tell, do we think all those kids in the top 10% of their HS class are going, if not to their public flagships? Remember, the top 10% in HS are closer to 20% of all college freshmen. There just aren’t enough places in elite privates to hold them. Think about it: 10% of the 3.2 million HS graduates is 320,000 students. They’ve got to go somewhere. </p>
<p>I’ve actually made a little study of this for one state, Michigan, which is probably not typical, but it is instructive. Higher education in Michigan is very hierarchical. The vast majority of students stay in-state, a large majority attend public institutions, and the University of Michigan grabs off a huge fraction of the top in-state students. Basically you’re told as a HS student in Michigan, “Don’t even think about the University of Michigan unless you’re in the top 10% of your class; but if you are, and if your test scores are good, you have a good chance of admission, it’s a great school and a great bargain, why go anywhere else?”</p>
<p>The University of Michigan claims 92% of its enrolled freshmen were in the top 10% in 2010. That’s a high figure, but it’s believable. Doing the math from Dept of Education enrollment figures by state, that works out to 3,630 top 10% Michiganders, or 31.8% of all the Michigan HS grads who were in the top 10% of their class that year. Michigan State reports only 29% of its freshmen were in the top 10%, but it with a bigger class and a higher percentage of in-state students, its total of 1,730 equals 15.2% of the state’s top 10%-ers. So about half as many in-state top 10%-ers enrolled at the state’s secondary flagship as at the primary one, and nearly half of the state’s top 10%-ers attending one of those two schools; about what you’d expect in Michigan</p>
<p>From there the drop-off is precipitous. The state’s 13 other public colleges and universities, which together enroll about 2.5 times as many Michiganders as Michigan and Michigan State combined, account for only 27.4% of the state’s top 10%-ers. </p>
<p>That leaves just over a quarter, 26.4%, attending in-state or out-of-state private colleges, out-of-state publics, or in-state community colleges. </p>
<p>Those numbers strike me not only as plausible, but just about exactly what I would have expected. As I said, few Michiganders leave the state for college. Only 159 Michiganders enrolled as freshmen at Ivies in 2010, a little over over 1 in every thousand HS grads, and just over 1% of those in the top 10% of their class. Another 380 enrolled at non-Ivy top-25 private universities—the truly “national” schools—accounting for a little over 3% or so of the top 10%-ers in the state. Even if you assume all those students were in the top 10% of their HS class, those schools absorb just a tiny fraction of the top 10%-ers in the state. Very few Michiganders attend out-of-state publics: 69 to Purdue, 59 to Indiana, 46 to Ohio State, 30 to Wisconsin, , 15 to Illinois, 15 to Minnesota, 15 to UC Berkeley, 3 to William and Mary, 2 to UVA, 1 to UCLA, and you can’t assume they were all in the top 10% because admissions standards at some of these schools are not that high. </p>
<p>Private colleges and universities in the state are small and for the most part, not particularly strong. University of Detroit Mercy is one of the larger and stronger ones; 28% of its freshmen were in the top 10%, but it enrolled only 492 Michiganders as freshmen, so that would be 138 top 10%-ers, or 1.2% of the state’s total. Kalamazoo College is a pretty good LAC, but small; it enrolled just 210 Michiganders, and 46% of its freshmen were in the top 10%, which would mean 97 Michiganders, or 0.8% of the total. Most of the other in-state private schools are some fraction of 1%.</p>
<p>Bottom line, you just can’t account for where all the top 10%-ers in the state of Michigan are going unless the University of Michigan is getting 30+% of them, consistent with its claim that 92% of its freshmen were in the top 10% of their HS class. Given that, I don’t think it’s improbable that UC-Berkeley and UCLA, with a much larger pool of top 10% students to work with, would have an even higher percentage than Michigan.</p>
<p>Admitted students is a term used for students who have been offered admission by school but have not necessarily accepted the offer or who have not yet matriculated. Matriculated students are the students who have accepted admissions.</p>
<p>“I don’t find it at all implausible that UC-Berkeley could have a higher percentage of its freshmen coming from the top 10% than Stanford.”</p>
<p>Agreed.</p>
<p>xiggi:</p>
<p>while I readily admit that Cal’s numbers are an estimate – and they HAVE to be since nearly half of California’s public high schools do not rank – I don’t think it implausible for Cal to have a higher decile than that Junior University across the Bay.</p>
<p>One example shows why…take (tony) Harvard-Westlake, which has a senior class of just under 300. Top decile is 30 (for my round numbers). HW sent 26 students to HYPSM last year; a dozen of which went to Stanford. And an additional 49 to the rest of the Ivies. Granted, everyone of those dozen coulda been top decilers who went to Stanford, but it is likely that a couple of second decilers went there as well. </p>
<p>In contract, tony HW has no love for the publics: only 3 attended Cal last year, and 4 matriculated to UC Southern Branch.</p>
<p>Bluebayou, we have been talking about believable and plausible in the last posts. If I read correctly, it is entirely plausible that a school such as UT at Austin only enrolls around 70 percent of its class from the top 8/10 percent despite having a system that guarantees admissions to that particular segment of the graduating class in Texas. Yet, it is also plausible and believable that other states (such as Michigan and California) inch towards that (finally) implausible and improbable 100 percent. Must be due to some formidable differences in high schools and admissions in those states!</p>
<p>Fwiw, a difference between Cal and Stanford that we DO know is that the number of students who were admitted at both school tend to enroll at Stanford and that only a handful (well probably two hands since the number is around 10) end up at Cal. Should we assume that almost every student who was cross-admitted was in the top 10 percent? Should we assume that almost nobody from the tony high schools in the Bay Area (think Gunn or Paly) goes to Cal? Well, almost nobody because the difference between 100 and 98 percent is still 2 percent in my book, and that 2 percent of the enrolled class at Cal is … not that many! According to our friend Clinton, that number is exactlty FIVE dozen strong. Yes, that is SIXTY! </p>
<p>Some here have taken the example of the athletes at Stanford. Doesn’t Cal fields plenty of Golden Bears in its athletic recruits … or should be assume that Stanford only picks from the “lower ranked” students as long as they are better athletes, and leaves the mathletes to Cal? </p>
<p>The bottom line? Do I believe that there are only SIXTY students who enrolled at Cal that were not in the top ten percent of their class? Even with the JUCO swinging backdoor at Cal, I think that number is as fabricated as an OSB board.</p>
<p>Sixty non-top 10 percent students between California, all the remaining states, and the rest of the world? Yeah, I believe that as much as that crooked admit rate posted on USNews for Cal! The only difference is that I KNOW the admit rate to be unadulterated horse manure. And, for the inquiring mind, here’s a bit of background:
<a href=“http://students.hw.com/chronicle/Features/FeaturesArticles/tabid/1299/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/8637/Spring-college-admissions-grow-in-popularity.aspx[/url]”>http://students.hw.com/chronicle/Features/FeaturesArticles/tabid/1299/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/8637/Spring-college-admissions-grow-in-popularity.aspx</a></p>
<p>Looking at the list if the usual suspects, I’d say … Oh, What a surprise to see American University, Brandeis University, Colby College, Middlebury College, Northeastern University, Pepperdine University, UC Berkeley, UC Los Angeles, UC San Diego and University of Maryland! </p>
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<p>BB, enrolled numbers tend to show the other side of the “love” as admitted students have choices. Do you happen to have the yield numbers at the UC for the HW students? I know of tony schools that “grab” dozens and dozens of admissions (more than 50 percent all their graduating class) to public flagships in Texas and almost NEVER send anyone, except for football or one of the honor programs.</p>
<p>PS HW sent 23 students to USC. and 20 to Michigan. Go figure!
<a href=“Matriculation”>Matriculation;
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Your obsession with Cal admissions must have affected your brain. The junior college admits have absolutely nothing to do with the percentage of freshman admits in the top decile. It’s completely irrelevant to the issue, but for some reason it keeps you up at night. </p>
<p>Remind me how you KNOW the admit rate for first time freshman is higher than the reported number. And please try mightily not to mention transfer admissions, which is a separate category in the CDS. I suppose it’s possible, but I’d like to see your evidence. Because if this is such common knowledge, how come nobody calls them on it? </p>
<p>One thing for which there is ample reporting is that CMK admitted fudging their numbers.</p>
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<p>Do you think for ONE second that I do NOT know that transfers are not part of the freshman admit statistics? But, for the record, you are absolutely wrong that transfers have NOTHING to do with freshman admits. </p>
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<p>Yep, Claremont McKenna did. And do you want to know what I thought about the fudging, or did you just think that making such a comment would make it personal or hurt below the belt?</p>
<p>EDIT to answer to your edit.</p>
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<p>I posted the answer to that question earlier. All you need to do is to check the statistics posted by UCOP that include Spring admits and compare to the CDS numbers that obfuscate them. I have posted links to those numbers before:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ucop.edu/news/factsheets/2012/fall_2012_admissions_table2.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ucop.edu/news/factsheets/2012/fall_2012_admissions_table2.pdf</a></p>
<p>Cal 2010 Total 50,372 12,914 25.6%
Cal 2011 52,953 13,523 25.5%</p>
<p>Now check the USNews/CDS data
<a href=“http://opa.berkeley.edu/statistics/cds/2011-2012.pdf[/url]”>http://opa.berkeley.edu/statistics/cds/2011-2012.pdf</a>
Total first-time, first-year (freshman) applied 52,966
Total first-time, first-year (freshman) admitted 11,441</p>