Take, university of pittsburgh, for example, it’s ranked #62 and has a very high 67% acceptance rate. I don’t get how that’s possible honestly.
And then just at rank #44, Northeastern University has only a 18% acceptance rate. Rank #15 is 13%, and obviously the top ones are in the single digits.
I feel like in general, good public schools have higher acceptance rate than similar-quality private schools. Is that true?
Or is it that the difference in ranking actually has a huge impact?
Schools with lower yields and larger classes have to take a higher percentage of applicants to ensure they fill their entering class. Schools with high yields can afford to push down their acceptance rate (which then often results in a self fulfilling cycle).
To be fair to new users, based on the number of threads I have had to shut down for contentious debate, there are users (not you, of course) who have been here for decades who await the USNWR rankings like a child anticipating a visit from Santa.
Pitt’s most recent stats show 53,072 apps and 26,079 acceptances but only 4,390 enrollees. But less than 50% - it’s gotten popular.
NUE at 91,000 apps, 6,191 acceptances, and2,519 enrollees.
So a few things:
Rankings mean squat - but you have to look at the criteria - what %, if any, is admission rate.
NEU has a high yield. Pitt doesn’t. This is likely because NEU knows who is really interested vs. applying because it’s an easy, nothing extra to do app. That’s how they get to 91,000 - they beg people to apply by making it really easy - so there’s nothing to do. Then more people they can reject.
Other factors go into a school’s ranking - but NEU’s is higher than Pitts - although I don’t think it’s rep is any better.
So publics have a low acceptance - a UVA, UNC and other fine names have high acceptance rates - Purdue, IU, Colorado, etc.
In the end, rankings are a game - and some play the game. Literally.
It’s old - but there are other cases including flat out lies - like Columbia which was caught.
First, they tend to get fewer frivolous applicants, people who are really not qualified and who do not have anything else extraordinary about them. There is a partial exception for the top few “national” publics and their OOS applicants. But for the most part, most very good publics are not getting the large volumes of frivolous applications that the privates in desirable locations like Boston and such tend to get.
Second, their yield is low but relatively predictable. Like, Pitt knows a lot of high numbers people are applying to Pitt as a backup option, but Pitt has so much experience with these people it can still predict pretty well how many will yield if it gives out certain merit offers, honors college admissions, and so on. So Pitt does not have to yield protect, it can just admit a bunch, send out its merit offers and such, and know pretty well what sort of class it will get.
OK, so between the lack of frivolous applications to reject, and the lack of a need to yield protect, Pitt can admit a lot of people.
Even so, as another poster noted, Pitt is experiencing higher volumes and admitting fewer people. But not like a private in a popular location, at least not yet.
Part of this is attaching significance to the wrong data. A school doesn’t have to be exclusive or highly selective to be excellent. It needs good profs/teachers and adequate facilities to provide an amazing education and a committed to serve all its students.
In fact, some might argue that good student outcomes at the most selective schools are to be expected given the student body, who just might thrive as well if left at a club med for 4 years.
Agreed. But unfortunately a lot of students and parents associate selectivity with excellence - therefore the attempts by a few private schools to drive up the number of applications (via aggressive nationwide marketing and simplifying the application process) so they can publish a low acceptance rate. And in the past, it was also a factor in US News rankings.
I know it’s a popular opinion that schools, goosed their numbers only to move up the rankings and appear more selective, and I expect that this played some role in their solicitation of applicants. Especially with the encouragement of USNWR! (As a side note, there is a movement afoot for many schools to not participate in the rankings as law schools have done, so we’ll see how/if that changes things.)
Increasingly though, I am a bit less cynical about this. Many schools, especially the older New England LACs, have realized that they needed to extend their profile and brand beyond the region and their traditional student profile. Demographics dictate this need. At the same time, most students applied to more school, so they all appear more selective. And with costs being so high, students and their families are looking for the additional validation of their choice and what better stamp of approval than scarcity created by high demand.
But in reality, the value is in the product delivered which is not impacted by whether the school’s enrollment strategy involves attracting more students from Arizona or more FGLI kids or whatever is driving them to expand their applicant pool.
I think most folks on CC know this about quality-- you see it as posters encourage students to think beyond T10.
I was specifically referring to two schools that seem to have done this. The growth in applications and drop in acceptance rate at most schools has happened for multiple reasons, including going test optional.
You also need to factor cost and Test Optional increase. If private does not provide merit aid, middle class (big chunk of applicants) is out and does not apply(there is no reason to waste your time, money and common app slot). Also even OOS public (except few outliers like UCs and UMich) can be “reasonable” since they take AP and DE classes. On the other hand, privates often do not take APs and DE.
With inrease of TO, significantly increased number of applicants. However, a student can go only to one school and not to 20. If school is a big public, they understand yield will be far from 100% and they need to accept a lot of students to attract a few. Do not look only at acceptance. Look at yield too.
Not necesarily true.
Look at GaTech. Unless you will look at acceptance instate vs OOS, you can think that student can have a chance. The problem is GA has a law that requires to take a big percentage of instate students.
GaTech OOS acceptance rate last year was only 12%. And I bet yeild of those OOS was very high. For instate acceptance was something like 36% - huge difference.
Frankly, I do not get Northeastern hype.
I think it is good promotion skills by administration, location, and USNews…
Based on location and USNews, since we were visiting Olin and BU we visited NE too with one of my children. We were not impressed at all. Location was not the best part of Boston. Tour guides were far from good. Labs and classes visiting students were introduced to my advanced DD already completed in school in previous grades. At orientation for parents at my direct question what makes your school atrractive they said coops… I was speachless. Coop has nothing to do with school. Students can do coops or internships at many colleges…I get that they build it into schedule but is that it? So we looked with DD at each other and crossed NE from the list. Maybe we missed something?
I mean, there is like zero chance Northeastern would have the same volume of applications if it was located in the Midwest, or even Upstate New York.
Now to be clear, Northeastern is an R1 university. I believe they were added to the list in the 2016 update (it is on a five-year cycle). This is a significant marker, and I believe as of the 2021 updated, there were only 146 R1 universities in the US.
So I don’t think it is wrong to believe Northeastern is an important university, or for that matter an improving university.
But still, it undoubtedly benefits in certain ways from being in Boston.
Nope - you got it - one of their biggest selling points is their Co-op program which for many lead to a job in your field/program right out of college. For some that’s a very important thing for others, not so much.
