<p>Historically, the number of applications has been rising, mainly due to the increase in people going to college. However, with UCLA's breaking 50,000 applications, Harvey Mudd's going up 15%, Caltech's needing to send an extra email notifying applicants of an increase, and many more schools seeing a notable increase in applications (CMU, allegedly up 30%), I'm going to guess that not only are more people going to college, but people are applying to more schools. </p>
<p>So, if the applications-per-person ratio has risen to cause these increases, can we assume that the number of acceptances will go up? I still believe that acceptance rates will drop, but the raw number of those accepted will go up. Of course, this will mean that yields will drop as well, but with today's selectivity, we all are applying to multiple schools and a drop in yield for our not-first-choice schools is inevitable...</p>
<p>
[quote]
I still believe that acceptance rates will drop, but the raw number of those accepted will go up.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Somehow I doubt it -- colleges aren't going to build new dorms or classrooms to accommodate increasing numbers of accepted students or anything. They'll just have to reject more of them.</p>
<p>The acceptances-per-applicant ratio might go up as well (meaning the yield rates will drop) because everyone's applying to more places since everyone is expecting a fierce competition everywhere.</p>
<p>Also, although colleges will not build new dorms, because the acceptances-per-applicant ratio will go up due to an increase in the applications-per-applicant ratio, colleges will have to over-admit even more than they do now, because their admits will have received several more acceptances from elsewhere. Of course, schools with high yield (Harvard) will not accept more because they are assuming that even if their admits get a bajillion acceptance letters, they're still all going to choose Harvard.</p>
<p>
[quote]
colleges will have to over-admit even more than they do now, because their admits will have received several more acceptances from elsewhere.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Hm, yeah that's probably true. I guess it gives people more choice and colleges less.</p>
<p>I wouldn't be so quick to paint such a black-and-white picture. I would argue that in some cases it would give people LESS choice. Now colleges will have to overadmit more students, yet estimated number of those who will ultimately matriculate will be harder than ever to determine. This means some colleges will no doubt overadmit like many did last year. For some schools, this means not being able to take students off of the waitlist. It could also mean that while in the past for students with unsatisfactory grades in their senior year were simply allowed to retake those courses at a nearby community college in the summer and enter the university in the fall, now these students may have their acceptances revoked. Besides, overadmitting and overcrowding isn't good for the students, and it certainly isn't good for the upcoming class (Yale overadmitted by about 50 students 2 years ago and last year it had the lowest acceptance rate of all the national universities, lower than Harvard).</p>
<p>I'm inclined to say no. While the number of applicants increases, the number of spots available doesn't, but the fact that yield rates will go down should cause colleges to over-admit to get the right number of matriculates, which would distort the acceptance rates somehow (not sure).</p>