Based on the number of early applications and past growth rates in applications, Stanford could receive over 44,000 applications this year. If the number of accepted students stays the same around 2100, the projected admit rate could be about 4.8% or lower.
@ewho. What would be the excitement of dropping the “hammer” with their release of numbers this soon…they enjoy letting the northeast conference school(s) try to bask in their “numbers” as if it is “impressive”…the whisper numbers are out…and the whisper numbers will be even more audible/pronounced during the Parents’ Weekend (later this month)…and they will hold on to their “official” numbers till decision day 
…it’s more fun this way 
It seems that the northeast conference schools worry more about the snow and themselves, rather than Stanford. The member in NYC received more than 36,000 applications this year, and that looks like to threaten the member in Boston, and hence Boston member came out to claim that it received more applications… After all, gradually there will be no difference among the members in that conference, and possibly that conference is no difference among any conferences.
Stanford may want to keep a low profile about its applications, though the truth will come out soon. Hopefully the results will not be too shocking to offend anyone, in any sense.
For a humorous touch:
http://stanfordflipside.com/2010/03/stanford-admissions-rate-drops-below-zero/
@2prepMom. that’s funny…but, I think it would be more “realistic” for the admit rate to be 0% before it reaches -3.12%…don’t you think 
http://stanfordflipside.com/2014/04/stanford-admits-0-0-to-class-of-2018/
Though it is a misconception of low admit rate leading to more selective for the college, reducing admit rate by all means is almost universally practiced at many universities, especially the one in Boston. And it looks like that its name is not good enough anymore after about 400 years in existence.
The yield to admit ratio tells more about selectivity of a college when the manipulations of both yield and admit rates are offset each other to some degrees.
Interesting article. I think it’s unfortunate that some schools feel pressure to artificially increase applicant numbers - especially if they’re encouraging people with little chance of getting accepted - but schools are just responding to incentives, such as rankings that use admit rate and yield rate as factors.
Still there’s only so much schools can do to market themselves - things like population shifts play a role too, as the article notes. E.g. this year UCLA got 112,000 applications, over 2x the number at Michigan and over 3x the number at Virginia . . . I don’t think UCLA is 3x as good as Virginia, but the population in California is growing a lot faster.
Obviously perceptions of school quality are a big factor too and there’s only so much schools can do about that.
The misconception is not about the number of applications but about the admit rate.
Sure, it’s number of applications colleges can most readily influence though . . . the easiest way to lower admit rate is to increase the number of applications.
Obviously the other piece of admit rate is number admitted, which has been pretty constant at most schools, though the ones with rising yield have been admitting fewer to get to their target numbers of matriculating students.
There are some schools, such as Stanford and Yale, that are working to increase the size of their classes and therefore the number they can admit, but that’s not easy to change as it’s constrained by the amount of housing, number of faculty etc.
Regarding a comment from Post #6, rankings do not consider yield rate in their methodology while admit rate is only accounted for 1.25% in consideration. That said, a low admission rate does project an image of high selectivity.
Stanford is the reigning champ and is certainly giving a fit to a school in Cambridge.
@ewho Why all the animosity towards Harvard? There is no need to talk down/trash another school to try and show another in a more positive light. Ironically, you in fact aided Harvard’s case as last year it indeed had the highest yield rate and was the only school to have one above 80%, so no, it’s name has not become useless over the past 400 years. And even if Columbia had more applicants than Harvard, I highly doubt that would have driven those in “Boston” (really Cambridge) crazy. Last year Cornell received 9000 more applications than Harvard, do you believe that Harvard feels (or even should feel) threatened by this fact?
Long story short, my point is that we all know that the members of HYPS are all equivalent in terms of selectivity, student body competence, etc. and that the only thing that separates them is the overarching personality of each institution. So there is no need for all this conflict.
I also must add, as an international student, I have yet to see what unethical recruiting tactics you are referring to because the truth is Harvard is one of the few top schools which seemed to make no effort in recruitment at all in my country (maybe the situation is different in America). Harvard is one of the few schools that did not visit the country, did not have a Skype session, did not send out a single recruitment email or newsletter to any potential applicant, and notably did not have to extend either its EL or RD deadlines, which several schools did. This is a stark contrast to some peer schools like Columbia which seemed to have flooded my inbox with hundreds of letters over the application cycle. Stanford did visit once, and that was it regarding their efforts. Princeton was the only other school that seemed to show this level of apathy towards recruitment with only one skype interview. So could someone please tell me what recruitmenot practices are being referred to?
Neither Harvard nor Stanford sent me any emails or letters… I think they presume everyone already knows about them.
It seems that the Pie (Pi) school has an 1467/18306=8% admit rate this year. The rate is higher than last year’s, and they celebrated Pi with silence, as usual. 
The good thing is that our farm school not only has pie, but much more to celebrate.
@Stanccepted I got large packets from Harvard, Princeton, and Penn, as well as a large 100-page booklet from Yale. Nothing from Stanford, though…
It’s probably because on all my SAT/ACT stuff I always indicated that I want mail. I’ve regretted that decision ever since 
Stanford heavily recruits in Asia. And they are all cash payers.
Stanford released their admit rate for class of 2019… virtually identical to last year…
Class of 2019: 5.05%
Class of 2018: 5.07%