Official Stats Please

<p>Has anybody ever felt frustrated by the lack of official statistics from colleges? It’s all nice and juicy when they give us one overall acceptance rate: but there’s a lot that goes beneath that.</p>

<p>Especially at a college like Penn, there’s a significant variation between the four colleges - The College, Wharton, SEAS and Nursing. We all know that Wharton is far more selective than the College, but this fact is cloaked by the overall 21% acceptance. Why can’t we have detailed figures for each of the four schools made available? Number of seats, number of applications, number of acceptances etc.</p>

<p>And for internationals like me; we receive a letter from Penn asking us to withdraw financial aid applications because competition is “very intense” and would “lessen chances” of admission, whereas not seeking aid would “enhance” chances. Surely, it would be much easier if I had two acceptance rates in front of me, and could then decide.</p>

<p>Lack of information can easily mislead others: for example, somebody may apply early to Wharton thinking that the 33% acceptance holds good, whereas the actual rate is around 20%, which is far lesser than even Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Why are colleges so secretive on these basic facts? IMO there needs to be a student motion to force them to make this data available</p>

<p>I would guess that the international financial aid admissions rate is not publicized because then no one would even bother to apply. It might even be as low as 4-5%. What they are saying with the letter is basically that you shouldn't apply for financial aid unless there is no other way for you to finance your studies.</p>

<p>I agree with you. There should be some way you could plug in your stats and it would tell you what percent are accepted. EC's are nice, but all it need include is:</p>

<p>Rank
SAT I (ACT)
SAT II
Non-Legacy? yes
Non-Recruited? yes
ED? yes
Ethnicity? white
School? wharton</p>

<p>Then people could actually be realistic about their chances. Don't whine about it not including EC's...this is just a general indicator so people have a REAL idea what their odds are. </p>

<p>Too bad this information would reveal such chaotic results that it would create chaos if ever released...</p>

<p>lol it would create alot of choas.. like that calculator that estimated your admisssion chance.. I doubt anything could really give you a realistic evaluation of chances.</p>

<p>I think it could give you a realistic evaluation, within a range. It would merely reflect the percent admitted that meet those quantitative attributes out of those that apply with those attributes. So if you have a 33% chance numerically w/ great ECs, you can up your odds (and vice versa). Not necessarily precise, but I think def. realistic. Much more than "you have a XX% chance like everyone else." :)</p>

<p>Well the chances calculator would certainly be of great help, but it's perhaps a long shot for an Ivy - and the intangibles are of too much importance to discourage / encourage people based on their stats.</p>

<p>What they could do though, is give you a calculator that gives the number of applicants and number of aacceptances based on your profile...for example:
1. Decision round: Early / Regular / Overall
2. School: Wharton / SEAS / College / Nursing / Overall
3. Background: Domestic / International with Aid / International without aid / Overall</p>

<p>This would be a good beginning and would bring about a good deal of transparency into the system. Any possible further inclusions (maybe state and country wise data) could be considered after this basic step</p>

<p>from wikipedia</p>

<p>Admitting 20.8 percent of applicants to the Class of 2009, Penn has the second highest undergraduate acceptance rate in the Ivy League, behind only Cornell University. This is largely due to the fact that Penn has four undergraduate schools with varying acceptance rates. Typically, the Wharton School of Business and the College of Arts and Sciences have lower acceptance rates (around 13% and 17%, respectively) than the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the School of Nursing. Penn's yield (percentage of students who accept offers of admission) for the recently enrolled Class of 2009 is 66% (compare to Harvard - 79%; Princeton - 71%; Stanford - 67%; Yale - 66%; Columbia - 62%; Cornell - 49%).</p>

<p>So overall acceptance to the college is 17% - wow I never knew that!</p>

<p>That's precisely the problem, why do we have to rely on quasi-official sources such as Wikipedia? Why can't Penn put up these figures on its own website? I've seen the Wikipedia page myself, and I've seen 5 other pages with different figures. We need one last word from the guys who matter.</p>