I am Junior looking at both Computer Science and Business majors. These are both obviously difficult majors to get into, and so I will likely have to adjust my expectations a little bit for the types of college I can get into. Unfortunately, I can’t find anywhere what the actual acceptance rates are for computer science at, for example, UIUC or UW Madison. How can I find the acceptance rates and average statistics?
Most schools don’t release that kind of data.
Only a few schools show detailed by-major/division information. Examples:
http://info.sjsu.edu/static/admission/impaction.html (gives past thresholds, not averages or admission rates)
http://admissions.calpoly.edu/prospective/profile.html
http://admission.enrollment.cmu.edu/pages/undergraduate-admission-statistics
https://admissions.illinois.edu/Apply/Freshman/profile
Most schools don’t admit by majors, that’s why. Also “business” is so commonplace as to assume the overall school admit rate would equate to that unless it’s a specialty undergrad program like Ross, Kelley or Wharton.
Admission by major or division may be more common than one may think if one looks beyond well endowed highly selective universities and LACs. Actually, even three of the eight Ivy League schools admit by major or division – not “most” or them, but something to be aware of even among highly selective schools.
@ucbalumnus, do you mean Cornell (which really does! Is there anyplace for that data would love to see it?!) and which other two? Most of the others have separate engineering schools, Penn, Columbia and Dartmouth require a separate application to. Where else?
For things other than Engineering, Arts, Architecure and Nursing?
I have heard rumors that Penn’s Arts and Sciences likes certain under represented sciences such as possibly physics and chemistry but not to sure about that. Any data?
My kid was looking at Business schools (mostly state schools) and some did at least have some stats on their web sites. Not rates of acceptance but at least average SATs and such just for the business school so you can see the difference from the overall stats from the common data set. You could ask an admission officer too, you never know.
He was also looking at % of acceptances between OOS and IS and that was not that clear either.
Could you back into the data? For example, in looking at Penn with the rumor I mentioned, how many undergrad Physics majors do they graduate (assuming this is available). How many did they graduate in the last few years as opposed to how many full time faculty do they have? Also what are the requirements for the major.
Even at a private school, if they say something like the faculty can only accept 100 CS majors and entrance will be based on X in fall of Sophomore year. That tells me they do not need any more CS majors and if you want to get admitted you need to be prepared to have a backup major in case you do not get into to CS and perhaps your admission essay should not be about how CS is the only thing you have ever wanted. What would make the most sense is not picking that school.
Penn, Cornell, and Columbia are all divided into divisions, so that you are applying at least to a division rather than the school overall.
Yes but it is a pretty basic division for example Columbia, it is either the College or Engineering. You can look at the statistics for admission for each but it does not tell you much. If you want a major that can be in either school, while the College has a lower admission rate (usually, have not checked recently), there are (maybe) fewer physics majors applying that want the Core so YOU may get in versus if you applied for some physics related engineering SEAS. I have no knowledge is this is true AT ALL, just throwing out a hypothetical example. Also, if you are female SEAS may be easier for admission (or not, I have no idea).