<p>I recently read that Boston College’s applications fell by 26% to around 25,000 applicants. There was an all time high in applications last year (34,061) and though I’m not sure of the acceptance rate last year, I know that in 2011 it was 28%. Any estimate on what the rate will be like for this class?</p>
<p>I don’t know how this will exactly affect the acceptance rate, but I will throw out some of my thoughts.</p>
<p>By adding the essay and essentially weeding out some 26% of applicants who never planned on attending in the first place, the college is effectively increasing its yield rate.</p>
<p>This in turn means that the college will have to accept less people to fill the class than in previous years. </p>
<p>The acceptance rate will probably lie with the admission office’s perception of how the essay actually affected those applying. In my opinion, a short essay(I know you have to be more concise and focused) on any of those topics wouldn’t be much of a deterrent for someone applying to a bunch of schools. According to my intepretation of the situation, think that BC should admit a relatively higher clip of students. Another person might think that the essay was an extremely effective deterrent, and thus accept a lower clip. So however someone interprets the situation will probably determine the nature of the acceptance rate.</p>
<p>Probably not by a lot, I think. Before, BC was accepting a lot more kids than would actually attend (9,000 out of 35,000 or so for 2250 spots… 25% acceptance, 25% yield). </p>
<p>Assuming those 10,000 kids BC lost were less qualified (ie., kids who just applied for the heck of it, applying just to see if they could get in), then a 2,000-less acceptance is rather reasonable (ie., 20% of the kids who applied for the heck of it would have been accepted).</p>
<p>Now it’s probably more like 7000/25000 for 28% acceptance, 32% yield)
The acceptance rate might go up, but the yield would go up more (which really shows how BC is doing against it’s competitors).</p>
<p>This is of course from an outside perspective–I don’t know how many of those extra 10,000 kids would actually get accepted. I couldn’t really imagine it being higher than the current acceptance rate (again, assuming that they applied for fun as a reach school), so 15-20% might be likely.</p>