yes. @roycroftmom @gallentjill and others are getting to the point that the Universities hide; the 25-75% score bands are useless without knowing how many slots are already filled by institutional needs (URM, international, pell grant, recruited athletes etc…); the number of slots left and the scores of those rejected for them are the two numbers that matter, but schools want people applying who have no chance of getting in.
@anon145 I think it would be helpful for kids to see the numbers rejected at different GPA and SAT brackets so that they will understand their own realistic chances and understand that thousands of kids just like them are also rejected. It has nothing to do with how many slots are filled by “hooks.” It has to do with the brutal math of 10s of thousands of applicants and very few seats.
^ yes. same idea except some kids might find the recruited athlete bracket misleading… How many unhooked kids get in with bottom of 25% tile band??? would a school ever admit that number?
Of the “top 20” universities according to US News, I was able to find data somewhat along those lines for only three universities: Princeton, Stanford, and MIT. I love the idea posted upthread of showing statistics for the top 25% of test scores but none of the universities seem to do that. Perhaps they do not see that to be in their self interest. I could have missed statistics for some of the others, but only found these three.
Highlights are:
Princeton: Class of 2022: 8.0% acceptance rate for applicants having an SAT of 1500-1600
MIT: Class of 2022:
9% acceptance rate for applicants having an ACT of 34-36
9% acceptance rate for applicants having SAT Math of 750-800
11% acceptance rate for applicants having SAT ERW of 750-800
Stanford: Class of 2000
8% acceptance rate for applicants having an 800 SAT Math score
12% acceptance rate for applicants having an 800 SAT CR score
https://admission.stanford.edu/apply/selection/profile16.html
https://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/stats/
https://admission.princeton.edu/how-apply/admission-statistics
- I wonder what it is about these three universities, PSM, that makes them post this data where the others don't (besides me possibly missing postings of such stats by the others). It would have been nice to have data from some of the other universities that might be more representative of the group.
- I wonder if the other "top 20" universities have similar statistics, and if so, that could help explain a lot of individual's rejections.
@Trinity2016 Those are interesting statistics. I would love to have them from more schools on the level of Lehigh since I think its those schools that cause so much confusion. People seem to have gotten the point that the Ivy’s are nearly impossible for everyone, but the message hasn’t trickled down yet that you can get rejected at schools a step down as well.
@gallentjill. You sorta see that on Naviance with the scattertron thing. It is broken down by the actual schools past performance at “x” school.
You mean like admit rates by (for example) GPA range?
(table of admission rates by UC-recalculated GPA from the above post, from numbers on UC web site linked there)
Campus 4.20- 3.80- 3.40- 3.00-
higher 4.19 3.79 3.39
UCB 37% 10% 1% 1%
UCLA 41% 9% 2% 1%
UCSD 70% 34% 7% 1%
UCI 75% 38% 7% 1%
UCSB 80% 41% 8% 1%
UCD 89% 52% 14% 3%
UCSC 92% 70% 33% 12%
UCR 96% 84% 49% 15%
UCM 98% 95% 82% 45%
Unfortunately, the UCs do not give these frosh admission rate numbers by division or major where it is relevant to admission (for example, engineering majors or CS can be much more competitive than the campus overall).
Like @ucbalumnus says, statistics such as these are VERY broad and paint a limited picture of what your realistic chances are.
You wonder if some of these schools are going to hit the “Yogi Berra point” with the so-called “average excellent” kids who make up the bulk of their applicants, as in: no one applies there anymore, it’s too hard to get in! On a small scale, I can see this for myself on my kids’ HS Naviance. Up until now, two or three kids usually get into Cornell every year. As a result, 15-20 kids apply to Cornell every year. In contrast, no one gets into Princeton. Seriously, in the last 10 years, not a single Princeton admit from my kids’ HS. Not surprisingly, only one or two kids have bothered to apply the past few years.
The CDS stats relate to matriculating students, rather than applicants. Beyond those stats, it’s primarily the specific college’s decision about what stats to publicsh. At the listed HYPSM… colleges and most “top 20” universities, SAT scores comprise only a small portion of the admission decision, so listing admit rate by SAT score is not particularly meaningful. Listing admit rate by SAT scores can also suggest that the SAT score was the cause of the admission decision when the primary reason for the difference in admit rate by SAT score was other criteria that is correlated with score. For example, the score page of MIT’s website links to the following warning about interpreting admit rate by SAT score numbers:
That said, there is information about quite a few other top 20 colleges on the web. For example, lots of detailed information about Harvard’s admission process has been published in the lawsuit, including admit rate by SAT score. Brown has some admit rate by class rank info, such as admit rate for valedictorians and used to have more detailed admit rate by SAT/ACT score than can be found in archive.org. Admit rate by SAT can be derived by Cornell publications, such as http://irp.dpb.cornell.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Profile2018-Freshmen2.pdf . They also have similar stats for specific schools. I could list many more. You can also use Naviance and 3rd party scattergrams to make estimates.
Thanks @Data10. The Cornell link had lots of good info on Cornell. We can now add another school’s data to the list. Unfortunately Cornell’s data lists percentages of each group of applicants, admitted applicants, and enrolled applicants that fall into each test score band (e.g. what percentage of the admitted students have a 750-800 SAT score), as opposed to the acceptance rate for each test score band, but the underlying info is in there that lets us get to the acceptance rate by test range, I believe. Hopefully I didn’t mess up the math. The results seem plausible in light of the numbers reported by Stanford, Princeton, and MIT.
Cornell: Class of 2022: (as calculated from other data reported by Cornell) 13% acceptance rate for applicants having an SAT Math score of 750-800 and 18% acceptance rate for applicants having an SAT ERW score of 750-800%.
Still scary low rates for applicants with very good test scores.
Presumably, you want something like this grid that the AAMC puts out for medical school admission rates by MCAT and college GPA:
https://www.aamc.org/download/321508/data/factstablea23.pdf
Note: this is the percentage of applicants who get at least one admission. Since medical school applicants apply to 16 or so medical schools on average (and some apply to 30 or more), but only 42% get any admissions, and most of those get only one, that makes elite undergraduate schools look easy in comparison.
Regarding the grid like the AAMC puts out for medical school admissions…
It would make sense for public universities that use holistic admissions to publish similar grids for the most recent admissions cycle – and also have grids by division or major if they admit by division or major. It should be obvious that, for any given GPA and test score combination that shows an admit percentage other than 0% or 100%, the unmeasurable-from-the-outside factors such as essays and the like will be important.
For public universities that use non-holistic point systems or some such, the admissions algorithm should be published, and the most recent admissions cycle thresholds published – again by division or major if applicable (e.g. something like http://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/impaction/ , although it would be better if it included the eligibility index formula which one needs to look for on other CSU web sites).
Why specifically public universities? Because their mission is supposed to be to be accessible to as many students in the state who can benefit themselves and others (though increased contributions to economy and society) as possible, so making the admission process less mysterious and more transparent is something that helps them fulfill their mission (e.g. by letting students know what a realistic application list among the in-state public universities would be). Yes, it would be nice if private universities also did that, but they have different motivations, some of which are served by being more opaque rather than transparent.
@ucbalumnus the problem with grids is that unhooked kids will look at that and say I have a chance! recruited athletes get into the Ivies with 30ACTs . I would bet not many non athletes, non URMs non pell grant, non donors get in with that but probably 100 athletes do. (about half the athlete pool; golfers etc. need higher scores). Also, people who have hooks (national merit Finalist. #1 in class with individual rankings, etc… some don’t even realize they have hooks, some hooks are less apparent like a URM status that is not obvious to others etc… What kids really need to know is the grid of unhooked applicants/accepted/rejected. anecdotally when I’ve seen kids get into HYPS with 32/33 ACTs they always have hooks but admissions is never going to tell unhooked kids with those scores don’t waste your time applying, “holistic” further give false hope to many.
High School’s College Counselors better get on board. My DD gave her the EA:ED vs RD is very little difference speec for both junior and senior year!!! So frustrating to say the least!
Next D will be well prepared!
@TheBigChef
No I believe the quote is “100% of admissions in 90% mental”
?
The numbers seem brutal this year. 8% at Rice, 6% at Brown, 11% at USC. Definitely a lot harder to predict outcomes.
Did you see the word public in reply #112?
In any case, even for the most selective private schools, the grid may help. If people see that even the box for the highest band of GPA and highest band of test scores has a low admission rate (even including the “hook” groups), they will be less likely to be overconfident about their chances, like so many here are.
Duke announced 5.7% admit rate. Tonight will be difficult
Is the Duke 5.7% rate for RD round or total?