<p>Self selecting is one of the terms colleges use to explain away higher acceptance rates. Essentially they say that there is a higher acceptance rate because the pool of applicants themselves is better than applicant pools at other institutions. In the case of Columbia SEAS, this is probably true. Other institutions like MIT try to use the term self-selecting to explain away the gender gap in acceptance rate… I’m not buying that.</p>
<p>^a good way to guess if better applicants are self-selecting is to see sat scores of students in the accepted class. Also what is MIT’s gender gap in acceptance rate? do women get accepted at a higher rate? and does MIT claim female applicants are more qualified?</p>
<p>I don’t know what the exact numbers are, but I know there is a significant difference between the male and female rates. They say it’s solely because of a self-selecting applicant pool, and while it probably has some effect, it doesn’t really explain the whole of it IMO.</p>