Low admission rates at selective colleges

Applying to College
1

<p>I was doing some musing and this question was mulling around in my head, so I wanted to post it here to see if it could be answered:
UPenn's acceptance rate is 9.9 % while Columbia by comparison has a 6.9 % acceptance rate. Now I'm thinking that even though Columbia's rate is lower, it doesn't necessarily mean that Columbia kids are smarter than UPenn kids or visa versa. Do schools like Harvard and Columbia, both of whom with low acceptance rates, have those numbers because they have a bigger pool of applicants than UPenn or Brown? They get more applicants, but have a limited amount of spaces so thus the acceptance rate lowers? Or is there something else at play here?</p>

<p>Sorry if this seems like a stupid or silly question to anyone, I'm just curious.</p>

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<p>That info should be found on the school’s common data set. You can see how many applied and how many got in. An example would be Tulane. They get a ton of applications and have a 26% acceptance rate. The average gpa and act there are not really as high as other schools that have around a 20-30% acceptance rate. It’s simply because they receive a ton of applicants they don’t have space to hold them all.</p>

<p>Harvard’s is kind of skewed because they admit so many through SCEA and comparatively much fewer through RD. </p>

<p>Generally though, the Ivies & Stanford are very popular to apply to and they reject a lot of people because people are like “Heck, let’s just apply” and naturally when people want to spontaneously apply to a prestigious school they’ll put down Harvard or Yale or something.</p>

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<p>Ah. Thanks for the info</p>

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<p>ilaria: admit rate is a simple equation. Admit rate = # applicants / # admits. Nothing else “is at play”</p>

<p>Why don’t you google the admit rate of “Curtis School of Music” for kicks?</p>

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<p>@T26E4 I am not trying to pull your leg, but ins’t admission rate = # admits / # applicants ;)</p>

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<p>At this numbers, the difference between 9% and 6% admission rate is pretty meaningless in measuring quality of student applicants.</p>

7

<p>If u jumped out of an airplane w a parachute that has a 9% chance of opening or one that has a 6% chance of opening, they’re pretty much the same thing.</p>

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<p>Just to play devil’s advocate one could sat that the 1st parachute is 50% more likely to open than the second.</p>

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<p>^^But in both cases, you will most likely go SPLAT. </p>

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<p>But if you jump ED - that improves the chances that you WON’T go splat…:)</p>