LAC Popularity Contest

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Just for fun, I thought I’d sort the top Liberal Arts Colleges by their popularity, as measured by the number of applications they received for this year’s incoming freshman class. This number is influenced by multiple factors and is far from a perfect indicator, of course. Still, as a group these schools draw from a relatively small, self-selected universe of top students, so the variation is fascinating, and doesn’t track the U.S. News rankings very closely.</p>

<p>Maybe there’s an economist out there who can comment on why Colgate and Wesleyan, for example, attract so many applicants relative to their peers. In theory, if those two schools had freshman class sizes closer to the average, they would be much harder to crack. </p>

<p>Top LACs ranked by total # of Class of 2011 applicants
(Total applicants, freshman class size, 2007 U.S. News Rank)
1. Colgate 8,752, 740 (16)
2. Wesleyan 7,749, 720 (10)
3. Middlebury 7,188, 560 (5)
4. Amherst 6,668, 433 (2)
5. Williams 6,437, 540 (1)
6. Vassar 6,075<em>, 670 (12)
7. Pomona 5,907, 380 (7)
8. Oberlin 5,983</em>, 700 (22)
9. Bowdoin 5,899, 475 (7)
10. Swarthmore 5,244, 370 (3)
11. Carleton 5,036<em>, 500 (6)
12. Macalester 4,967,500 (24)
13. Hamilton 4,951,470 (17)
14. Colby 4,679, 475 (20)
15. Barnard 4,572, 550 (26)
16. Bates 4,482</em>, 500 (23)
17. Claremont McKenna 4,140, 294 (12)
18. Davidson 3,992, 465 (10
19. Haverford 3,497, 314 (9)
20. Reed 3,363, 330 (53)
*2010 figure is latest available
(Missing numbers for: Wellesley (4), Smith (19), Washington & Lee (17))</p>

2

<p>Thanks for the interesting list.</p>

<p>I've noticed that, all other factors being equal, there's usually a strong correlation between freshman class size and the number of applicants. I was amazed at how many LACs from the next tier attract more applicants than most of the top 20 LACs. Bucknell and Skidmore are good examples: over 8,000 and 6,000 applicants respectively, w. freshman class sizes of around 900/700.</p>

<p>There must be a bunch of variables: general ability to attract students/number of majors offered/the way that increasing freshman class size decreases selectivity (and therefore makes the college a viable choice for more students), etc.</p>

3

<p>For the class of 2011 Vassar recieved 6,393 complete applications (however, they haven't released the number of how many students accepted spots in the freshman class. Taking that into account, froshdad's list looks something like this... </p>

<p>Top LACs ranked by total # of Class of 2011 applicants
(Total applicants, freshman class size, 2007 U.S. News Rank)
1. Colgate 8,752, 740 (16)
2. Wesleyan 7,749, 720 (10)
3. Middlebury 7,188, 560 (5)
4. Amherst 6,668, 433 (2)
5. Williams 6,437, 540 (1)
6. Vassar 6,393, 670 (12)
7. Pomona 5,907, 380 (7)
8. Oberlin 5,983<em>, 700 (22)
9. Bowdoin 5,899, 475 (7)
10. Swarthmore 5,244, 370 (3)
11. Carleton 5,036</em>, 500 (6)
12. Macalester 4,967,500 (24)
13. Hamilton 4,951,470 (17)
14. Colby 4,679, 475 (20)
15. Barnard 4,572, 550 (26)
16. Bates 4,482*, 500 (23)
17. Claremont McKenna 4,140, 294 (12)
18. Davidson 3,992, 465 (10
19. Haverford 3,497, 314 (9)
20. Reed 3,363, 330 (53)
*2010 figure is latest available
(Missing numbers for: Wellesley (4), Smith (19), Washington & Lee (17))</p>

4

<p>Who attracted the most candidates per seat in the freshman class?</p>

<ol>
<li>Pomona: 15.544</li>
<li>Amherst: 15.399</li>
<li>Swarthmore: 14.173</li>
<li>Claremont McKenna**: 14.081</li>
<li>Middlebury: 12.835</li>
<li>Bowdoin: 12.41</li>
<li>Williams: 11.92</li>
<li>Colgate: 11.827</li>
<li>Haverford: 11.137</li>
<li>Wesleyan: 10.763</li>
<li>Hamilton: 10.534</li>
<li>Reed: 10.191</li>
<li>Carleton: 10.072</li>
<li>Macalester: 9.934</li>
<li>Colby: 9.850526</li>
<li>Vassar: 9.541</li>
<li>Bates: 8.964</li>
<li>Davidson: 8.585</li>
<li>Oberlin: 8.547</li>
<li>Barnard: 8.313</li>
</ol>

<p>**Counts their deferred (from ED) applicants again in the RD round, so this may be biased upward</p>

5

<p>Holy Cross had over 7,000 applications for a class of 725-750 students. Also Bucknell is somewhat popular.</p>

6

<p>brassmonkey: Your list is interesting, but it re-ranks the schools by selectivity. My thought was to isolate one factor of selectivity -- the number of applications -- and see how the schools stack up. They vary much more than I would have guessed. </p>

<p>marathon: I don't doubt that applicants choose their schools in part on the size of the student body. But against the backdrop of all colleges, the difference in freshman class size among LACs is so small that it can't be the tipping point. Can it? So what is the tipping point? Maybe just how "hot" a school is in a particular year?</p>

<p>par: Although this is an imperfect comparison, I think it only makes sense to look at schools roughly in the same tier of selectivity, because they are drawing from the same universe of students. The universe of kids who could be strong applicants to the 2nd or 3rd tier of LACs would be much larger than those who'd be strong applicants to the 1st tier.</p>

7

<p>Putting them in order of acceptance rate would be rating them in selectivity. The difference that yield plays in determining the acceptance rate, is eliminated here. It is simply how many applicants there are to how many beds.</p>

8

<p>Interesting analysis. If Colgate and Wesleyan suddenly reduced their freshman class to 480, it would change the character of the schools to some degree. I think a class of ~ 730 is more appealing to a higher % of people than a class of 480. Also, Colgate and Wesleyan have acceptance rates ~ 25% vs. ~ 17% for Williams and Amherst, which probably also appeals to more applicants since they feel they have a better shot at admission at Colgate or Wesleyan than at Williams or Amherst. </p>

<p>Also, agree with brassmonkey about apps per seat not exactly measuring selectivity since yield is a factor. It would be interesting to see the same approach taken to the national universities too.</p>

9

<p>Re: the "hot school" theory. I looked back at the 2006 numbers to compare to Froshdad's list. Colgate's apps jumped by nearly 10 percent this year, Wesleyan's by nearly 8 percent. But other schools also had good years, so I don't know if the popularity theory alone explains why those two top the list.</p>

10

<p>At this level, as they receive more applications they actually get LESS, not more, selective. This is because the chances of any one school actually selecting the student who would benefit most from what they have to offer, and that student actually attending that particular institution, goes DOWN, not up. </p>

<p>So it is not a measure of selectivity, nor necessarily even a measure of anything but the popularity of submitting an application, not of the school itself.</p>

11

<p>Prefrosh is right that LACs -- and top universities -- have seen big jumps in total apps in recent years. That's clearly due to the population bulge in kids of high school age, plus the trend of applying to 10 or more colleges each. Still, those trends should apply evenly to all schools, so the comparison is still valid. I didn't do the same comparison of total apps among top research universities, but a quick look shows that there seems to be a lot less variation than among LACs. For example, Harvard got 22,920 last year, Stanford 23,956 and Penn 22,634.</p>

12

<p>Weird. The popularity list is very close to how I'm ranking my own list. I guess I'm more influenced by popularity than I thought I was.</p>

13

<p>
[quote]
At this level, as they receive more applications they actually get LESS, not more, selective. This is because the chances of any one school actually selecting the student who would benefit most from what they have to offer, and that student actually attending that particular institution, goes DOWN, not up. </p>

<p>So it is not a measure of selectivity, nor necessarily even a measure of anything but the popularity of submitting an application, not of the school itself.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>No matter how often the same trite argument might be reintroduced, that remains as blatantly false today as it was several years ago. </p>

<p>Selectivity --as used for ranking purposes--is a well defined term, but also one that some constantly try to "reengineer" to introduce caveats to "explain" the lower selectivity of their favorite schools.</p>

<p>While selectivity does not measure anything else than the a combination of the statistics of a freshman class, and does not measure quality or other subjective elements, it does what it is supposed to be. Schools that are ranked higher in selectivity (by the popular USNews magazine) ARE more selective. </p>

<p>And, it might be worth repeating that the ratio of applications versus admissions only represents 10% of the selectivity index and that the remaining 90% is based on SAT scores and percentage of students who graduated in the top ten percent of their class. This means that Smith and Mt Holyoke are ranked lower in the selectivity rankings based not ONLY on their higher acceptance rates but on their relatively lower SAT scores and rankings of their students in high school. </p>

<p>Regarding the popularity of lack thereof, a good indicator is provided by the analysis of the ED number of applications and the ED acceptance rate. It speaks volumes about a school's TRUE popularity when the number shows a struggle to increase the number of ED applications despite accepting the majority of its ED applicants. </p>

<p>And THAT cannot be twisted and churned!</p>

14

<p>neat and random
i'll try to find the w&l numbers on the accepted students page (if it's still up) sure they're there somewhere</p>