Interesting. So are athletes all subject to a pre read, and do they have to pass academic standards or are they just admitted 100%.
It is a very high ED rate by any standard and there are a very high number of recruited student athletes admitted each year (some via ED and some via RD) to HC considering the size of the student body. It is certainly true that at HC and at other schools the bulk of recruited student athletes who are accepted enter via early decision or early action.
FWIW, last year HC accepted 383 of 471 Early decision applicants. Even if 150 of them were recruited athletes, that means HC accepted 233 of 321 non-athletes. About 73%.
32% acceptance rate this year
Wow! If the overall acceptance rate at HC was 32% this year, that is an incredible gap between ED (81%) and Regular Decision. Future applicants (if they are in a position to do so) should really consider ED.
^ @LaxMass That will help with the “budget problem” for sure. ED skews wealthy. However, understanding is ED stats skew lower and less diverse.
@suzyQ7 Agree on ED skewing wealthy. (Notwithstanding the sometimes overblown point regarding athletes and ED at HC)
Some stats (especially selectivity) are greatly helped by heavily mining the ED pool (if you fill close to half your slots via ED - and with a very high ED selection rate - you’re only selecting enough kids during RD to fill about half of your slots so you can select much, much less at RD time…helps the ‘yield’ stat also).
Agree that some academic stats might suffer by selecting ED at the rate HC does…but then again HC is test score optional so those ACT/SAT stats are awfully wobbly anyway…and fewer and fewer kids come with rankings so that ‘top 10%’ is a shaky one now at many schools.
Good point on diversity stats.
@Btown1238 Where did you see the 32%acceptance rate?
Funny how things work out. Holy Cross was originally in my top 3 along with BC and Wake. HC was a solid target school - 33 ACT, 4.5GPA honors and AP classes etc. I was accepted at Wake, deferred early action at BC (withdrew application after attending classes for a day) and waitlisted at HC. Showed the most interest at HC and Wake. Applied to 12 schools including Bucknell at the last minute. Waitlisted at Bucknell which was my first college visit as a HS sophomore and basically didn’t give it a second thought.
Chose Lafayette (realized during the process that a LAC was the right fit for me). Sent deposit after attending accepted students day and was excited about Lafayette but something was always in the background - I thought it was HC. On May 6th, I received offer of admission to Bucknell. At my parents suggestion, I visited Bucknell and everything clicked. I found my home. My college search was filled with ups and downs but I guess its true that when one door closes another opens up.
@Jaspers. Congrats on your acceptance and best of luck at Bucknell. With your excellent stats you would have thrived at any of the schools you aimed at. Crazy admission cycle again this year.
@HCPP20 Thanks. I think admissions is a crazy process - you never know what’s behind the curtain. I am glad I went through it but also glad its over. I guess its a right of passage. I see the threads starting for the class of 2024 starting already.
Letter from president.
1 Like
That story is as old as time. Pretty much reorder any of those schools for various people. Bucknell is a fantastic school— you’ll love it.
@Btown1238 -Thanks