<p>I think I have the avg. requirements for most of the schools I want to get into, like BC, DUKE, and Northeastern. But since the number of applicants went up(by alot), i think i dont have a shot. And I want to know since their are more applicants than ever applying, are they going to accept more since they don't know how many students are going to enroll???</p>
<p>Probably not...there are only so many spaces (for dorms, seats in classrooms, etc) allotted per grade at each school. More applicants = lower acceptance rate. </p>
<p>School's play the statistics and averages of actual enrollment. Take last year at PSU for example--more students enrolled than they expected based on previous numbers and there is overcrowding in the dorms. Sometimes they "over admit" and sometimes they "under admit". They admit the same number as a previous year, but a higher percent chooses to enroll so they're said to have "over admitted". It's a risk the schools take. </p>
<p>If School X is a small campus (say 1000 incoming students/year), and 2000 apply each year and they accept 1500. The next year 2500 apply, but still just 1500 are accepted because on average, 500 students enroll somewhere else. The numbers are probably never set in stone quite like this, but you get the idea. </p>
<p>Sorry if this was confusing.</p>
<p>It depends on how qualified those additional applicants are. If not very qualified, then it tends to mean a lower acceptance rate. But if very qualified, then it tends to mean a constant acceptance rate since those people might get in somewhere else and go there instead -- thus the college needs to over-admit to fill all spots. I doubt it'd go higher in percent, but rather in # acceptances.</p>
<p>Kyledavid, huh? Where do people come up with these ideas?</p>
<p>Colleges are very sophisticated about guessing yield. Sometimes they're off but not usually. Top schools are well aware kids are applying to more schools. If their yield is lower than guessed, they go to the waitlist.</p>
<p>^^ I've looked at common data sets over the years. You see the trend of more applicants ---> more acceptances to keep the yield high (in some cases, though, they underestimate the # people who will matriculate, causing overflow and more selectivity the following year).</p>
<p>For example, Berkeley:</p>
<p>2001 - Applicants: 33,240; Acceptances: 8,738; Acceptance rate: 26.4%
2005 - Applicants: 36,989; Acceptances: 9,809; Acceptance rate: 26.5%</p>
<p>Thus, an increase in applicants shows an increase in acceptances, since they're expecting ~50% yield. In other words, an increase in applicants =/= an increase in % yield. In some cases, as in last year for Berkeley (I think), the jump in applicants wasn't completely correlated with the expected yield (due to a higher number of matriculates than expected), and as a result the acceptance rate the following year was something like 23.5%. As I said, it either stays constant or goes down, but it doesn't really go up (it went up by .1 if you want to be meticulous like that).</p>
<p>Haha, we had the same postcount. xD</p>
<p>No. It just means they rely on the waitlist more. If you look at the large spike in applicants between the classes of 2009 and 2010, you'll see a corresponding rise in the use of waitlists.</p>
<p>Many colleges, especially the most selective, have fairly steady yield rates. With an 80% yield, why would Harvard admit more students to accomodate a larger applicant pool? That's why many colleges have been boasting that their admit rate is going down every year.</p>
<p>For example, Yale's admit rate has gone from 26.4% in 1976 to 8.9% in 2006.
<a href="http://www.yale.edu/oir/open/pdf_public/W033_Fresh_Admissions.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.yale.edu/oir/open/pdf_public/W033_Fresh_Admissions.pdf</a></p>