NU overall acceptance rate at 18% -- down from 27% just 2 years ago

Colleges and Universities A-Z Northwestern University
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<p>The following is from the office of admissions (directed to alumni and local club leaders).
The bolding is mine. Congrats to those of you accepted - and those of you who weren't, you'll go someplace fabulous too and it's all good.</p>

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<p>The Office of Undergraduate Admission will notify applicants for the Class of 2015 of their decision this evening. Financial aid awards will follow in approximately one week. </p>

<p>** We received 30,975 applications for freshmen admission, up 12% from last year and up 22% from two years ago. We admitted a total of 5,573 students, or a record low 18% of the applicant pool. Last year, we admitted 23% of the applicants, and two years ago 27% of the applicants.**</p>

<p>Despite the lower number of accepted students, we admitted our highest number of African American and Hispanic applicants in at least twenty-five years as well as a record number of Chicago Public School applicants. </p>

<p>Our goal, as it every year, is to enroll a class that is academically first-rate and from a variety of backgrounds. We hope their experiences, perspectives and talents will make Northwestern a more dynamic, interesting place year after year. Selecting the candidates for admission was particularly challenging this year when you consider the following:</p>

<p>** Almost half of our applicants earned the equivalent of a 4.0 or higher grade point average. ** </p>

<p>Of our applicants reporting class rank, 71% were in the top decile. </p>

<p>Half of our applicants earned a 1420 (CR+M) or higher on the SAT (the equivalent of a 32 ACT).</p>

<p>** We admitted 1,300 fewer applicants this year than two years ago. **</p>

<p>We will all hear from upset students, parents and alumni about a deny or waitlist decision. Some points I like to stress every year:</p>

<p>The review process is a holistic one and each application submitted is evaluated by multiple members of the admission staff. I assure you we didn't miss anything. </p>

<p>** We do not have quotas of any kind for high schools, states or regions. We review each applicant within the context of the entire applicant pool, not just their high school or state. ** With 6,390 high schools represented, it would be impossible for us to admit one candidate from each school.</p>

<p>Given the highly selective character of our applicant pool, it is not possible for us to offer admission to all of the applicants who present strong credentials, especially when one considers all of our institutional priorities. ** Over 3,300 applicants with a 1500 SAT (CR+M) or higher (the equivalent of a 34 ACT) were not offered admission.</p>

<p>We denied more applicants this year than the total number of applicants we received two years ago.**</p>

<p>The acceptance rate for applicants who had a parent graduate from Northwestern was 37%, double our overall acceptance rate.</p>

<p>At this point in time, it is impossible to predict if we will need to admit students from the waitlist. Once the national reporting deadline of May 1 has passed, we will have a better idea as to whether or not we will need the waitlist to round out the Class of 2015.</p>

<p>Many thanks to all of you for helping us recruit, evaluate and admit what we anticipate will be a terrific freshmen class for Northwestern. We could not have done this without the support of the faculty, staff, alumni, and students. Of course, our work is not done - we must now convince the admitted students to enroll. Wildcats Days, our admitted student programs, will be held April 11, 18 and 25. In the meantime, we have already begun to recruit for the Class of 2016!</p>

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<p>Thanks for positing this, great stuff.</p>

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<p>Great to find out…</p>

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<p>Pizzagirl-thanks for posting this. I am going to forward this along to my freshman, who was shocked that he was admitted last year. I guess that holistic stuff works. ;)</p>

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<p>We have the same acceptance rate as Cornell this year…18%</p>

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<p>Glad to see that there are over 3300 people that got rejected along with me despite having over 1500 in SAT CR+M</p>

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<p>Why did they admit 1,300 fewer students this year?</p>

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<p>higher yield probably contributed to it, I assume</p>

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<p>I could be wrong, but I seem to recall they were a bit heavier with yield last year than anticipated and there is “no more room in the inn” so perhaps that was a contributor.</p>

<p>I know my S, a NU freshman, is encouraging a senior from his HS who was accepted to McCormick to become a Wildcat. IIRC, this student is mainly considering NU and CMU at this juncture.</p>

<p>Bravo Wildcats!</p>

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<p>“Over 3,300 applicants with a 1500 SAT (CR+M) or higher (the equivalent of a 34 ACT) were not offered admission.”</p>

<p>Looking at the bright side, this news might light a fire under a future applicant that I know to finally do some serious research on backup and/or safety schools.</p>

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<p>Interesting article, thanks for posting it!</p>

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<p>thanks Pizzagirl, very useful information!</p>

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<p>My son attends a Chicago high school that usually sends a half dozen or so students to NU. He’s heard several top seniors complain that they didn’t get in this year with stats that would have been good enough a year or two ago. He’s been gracious enough to nod his head in sympathy and not mention that got accepted. Fortunately for him, many of the seniors forget or don’t know that he is a 3-year graduate who also applied to college this year.</p>

<p>Given the rapid plunge from 27% to 18%, does anyone think the craziness has reached its limit/equilibrium point? Or will NU fall to a 12% acceptance rate in another few years? What’s driving this huge surge in applications, which is well beyond the growth rate elsewhere?</p>

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<p>I can’t speak for other parts of the country, or based on any solid data, but I’d say anecdotally that in our corner of the world NU has gone from almost completely unheard of, to “oh, that’s my dream school” in just a few years. Maybe they’ve been doing more marketing, or maybe the word has just spread beyond the midwest for some other reason?</p>

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<p>Better marketing, more agressive (read: extant) outreach, agressive pushes into california, NJ, and NY markets, and the surge in athletic success, prestige, and exposure, to name a few. The balooning of the endowment in the late 90’s is also finally taking hold.</p>

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<p>NU has gained more of a presence at our SoCal HS, which has resulted in two STEM major acceptance/matriculants in 2010 and 2011. Thanks to non-related things such as a president that hails from the Chicago area, students are beginning to realize there’s something more to “fly over” country (no offense to those who live there, as I also have friends and relatives who do.)</p>

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<p>Ah. So students from both coasts are starting to embrace more geographical diversity in their selection of colleges. Not so good for us locals – but then more and more of us are poaching in New England and California, too.</p>

<p>Has the NU acceptance rate from students who were offered slots risen, fallen or stayed about the same since this surge of applications kicked in?</p>

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<p>Obviously no data yet for this year, but I gather that last years’ yield was higher than they expected.</p>

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<p>We’re seeing similar acceptance drops in all of NU’s peer schools. There are probably a number of reasons for this, the most important of which is that the number of applicants that these schools are receiving has also grown tremendously over the past few years (i.e., the more qualified applicants a school gets, the fewer they can accept). One suspects that as a result of the Common App, the high quality students are just applying to a greater number of schools. It will eventually reach a new equilibrium, but no one will know when until it is reached.</p>

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<p>Here a link to a paper by a Stanford professor that I found on another CC thread. It’s an academic analysis that bolsters the fact that a certain level of student is casting their net widely, in a geographic sense.</p>

<p><a href=“http://economics.stanford.edu/files/ChangeSelectAmericanCollege.pdf[/url]”>http://economics.stanford.edu/files/ChangeSelectAmericanCollege.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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