<p>Slight increase in applications to Princetonto 27,115.
Princeton</a> University - Princeton sets applications record for seventh year in a row</p>
<p>I don’t understand why this increase is smaller than, say Harvard’s or Columbia’s, except to say that perhaps the Princeton supplement’s essay questions are more intimidating than other colleges’.</p>
<p>Only a 3.3% increase… wow.</p>
<p>27,115 applicants for 1300 spots equals=====yikes!</p>
<p>Columbia shot up 32%?
Penn up ~18%
Dartmouth up ~16%
Harvard up ~15%</p>
<p>Hmm…</p>
<p>Well Brown is like Princeton in that they both seem to have shot their proverbial wad last year.</p>
<p>Assuming same number of admits as last year (2311), the admit rate will be ~8.5%.</p>
<p>Compared to 2400 offers of admission to 34,587 Columbia applicants (6.9% admit rate).</p>
<p>It looks like Columbia will be more “competitive” than Princeton this year. I added quotes because I’m almost certain that the Princeton application pool is much more self-selective.</p>
<p>I doubt self-selectivity plays in when you compare Columbia and Princeton. Columbia moved to the Common Application this year, remember?</p>
<p>Which means… when Georgetown joins the club… the admissions game is NOT going to be fun.</p>
<p>1) Columbia shot up because this was the first year it accepted the Common App.
2) Georgetown has stated that it will not accept the Common App because it cannot interview any more applicants that it already receives.
3) Harvard went up because of it’s incredible FA and they are no longer requiring 3 SAT II’s.
4) I have no idea why Dartmouth went up – especially as they recently back-pedaled on their FA no-loan commitment and are now requiring all students to take out at least 4k of loans per year.
5) UPenn is just a mystery, at least for me.</p>
<p>I think Columbia’s rise up the rankings may have influenced its applicant pool somewhat as well.</p>
<p>Dartmouth requires only a Peer Review for its supplement while Penn eliminated one out of its two essays (Page 217 autobiography). Columbia has a relatively simple supplemental essay. Brown has a bunch of essays, depending on your major. Princeton has two or three essays depending on your major–that’s more work for kids who now have to apply to 10 or more colleges (the standard for these days).</p>
<p>That said, Stanford has three extra essays, one being their “Intellectual Vitality” essay. While both Harvard and Yale have a single “Anything Goes” essay.</p>
<p>^Harvard’s is also optional. I think the biggest factor for Columbia was, by far, joining the common app</p>
<p>Maybe we underestimate the allure of New York for people who have never been there. For those of us in the northeast, New York isn’t a magical emerald city; it’s just a big fun city that we’ve all been to a bunch of times. For those applying from Nebraska or Texas, New York may very well have a more magical aura.</p>
<p>This problem will be self-correcting as New York will eventually enter the decline state of the urban cycle. It’s just a question of whether the decline will be kicked off in earnest by matters fiscal, climate-change, or terrorist-with-WMD</p>
<p>Just what we need, more Sociology majors…</p>
<p>^hahahahahahahaha</p>