Regular Decision at competitive schools: 2012 statistics are showing up

Parent Cafe
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<p>Northwestern admitted 8 percent more applicants for the Class of 2012 — — than for last year, officials said Monday, as part of a record-setting class with the greatest number of applicants and highest SAT scores in university history.</p>

<p>A record 25,027 students applied to Northwestern for the coming fall, making for a 25.3 percent acceptance rate, according to Associate Provost Michael Mills. The mean SAT score of the prospective students was a record 1468, out of 1600, while 91.8 percent of those admitted are in the top 10 percent in their class.</p>

<p>Last year, 21,941 students applied and 27 percent were admitted. </p>

<p>[NU</a> admits 8 percent more applicants this year » North by Northwestern](<a href=“http://www.northbynorthwestern.com/2008/03/8348/nu-admits-8-percent-more-applicants-than-last-year/]NU”>http://www.northbynorthwestern.com/2008/03/8348/nu-admits-8-percent-more-applicants-than-last-year/)</p>

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<p>from the Yale article sly_vt mentioned: “Only 5.6 percent of applicants waiting on verdicts from Yale received favorable news when decisions were posted at 5 p.m. Monday evening. And even with early-action acceptees included, the admissions rate to Yale College hit a sobering all-time low 8.3 percent for the class of 2012.” </p>

<p>5.6 percent accepted RD. Wow.</p>

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<p>Good catch, JHS. I think someone at the Daily Princetonian did some quick and dumb math. I would guess that the announcement later today would be closer to 9%.</p>

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<p>I find it rather interesting that a certain Two, who dropped their early programs bcos they (suppposedly) “advantage the advantaged” were deadly silent on the financial makeup of their acceptees. :rolleyes:</p>

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<p>Noted from observations for ED & RD rounds posted on CC, as well as from D’s school (including & versus 10-year past history), as well as articles cited on page 4 of this thread:</p>

<p>The two different factors of essay & circumstance/opportunity have both assumed major importance, both for publics & for privates. If I were a family with opportunity (i.e., without significant challenges), I would be broadening my college search to include disparate geographies & different styles, sizes of privates. The strongly middle-class (or above) student can assume nothing any more, even of their in-state flagship public (unless there’s an ‘auto-admit’ policy).</p>

<p>In certain instances, depending on college policy/priority, legacy will equal or trump circumstances, but not usually. And for those who believe that the opportunity question is merely a social or political policy, it appears that the colleges do not see it that way. Achievement against circumstance is evidence of the following traits with ACADEMIC implications:
–determination, resilience
–creativity (figuring out ways to succeed ‘despite’___)
–courage/risk
–and even, independence</p>

<p>It is not that those qualities are not, cannot be equally present in a similarly high-achieving upper-middle-class student blessed with opportunity. They may indeed be there, & be evident in the application. </p>

<p>Similar conclusions might be drawn from the essay(s). Those that validate such desirable qualities will win the day.</p>

<p>Given admissions statistics just posted, it is clearer more than ever that “qualified” is not a term limited to scores & grades. But wait just a moment: if you prefer to go back to the “good old days” of statistical qualification, there is still no way that HYP + many others can admit even all the such highly qualified. </p>

<p>(In case anyone believes they “would have gotten in” were it not for AA, geography, name-your-demon.)</p>

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<p>For those in the “know”, are waitlisted applicants once take off the waitlist(if taken off the waitlist) counted and these acceptance percentage #'s recalculated again, or is this the numbers reported and marked as the final?</p>

<p>Cause if they are not recalculated and they take off the waitlist, this is but a game of cat and mouse among the top schools to boast the lowest rate ever recorded. </p>

<p>I would venture guess that there are many kids that got the in at many of them and can only sit in one seat somewhere. </p>

<p>Forgive the naive questions, just interested for no other reason but disgust they do this to so many kids for their own gain.</p>

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<p>The Common Data Set information that comes out next school year should reflect the actual number of admission offers made, including any made to students on waiting lists.</p>

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<p>Really, some of the whining about waitlists at selective colleges is completely unjustified. All of them have struggled with underpredicting yield in the past few years. Harvard just had to shut down its transfer program entirely in part because of overadmission of freshmen the past couple of years. And this year, the changes in Harvard’s and Princeton’s early admissions programs and the major changes in many schools’ financial aid policies have made yield prediction a total crapshoot within a fairly broad range. </p>

<p>In these circumstances, planning to use a waitlist is the only responsible, rational thing to do. I don’t think any of the colleges is motivated in any way by trying to raise its reported yield by a few basis points. The evidence suggests the contrary – Harvard, certainly, could achieve a 100% yield easily if it wanted to; it makes an annual decision not to do that. And Princeton just abandoned its yield-boosting ED program.</p>

<p>As for the size of the waitlists, they are probably a little large, but I believe many students decide to go with other options and not to stay on waitlists, so I have no idea what percentage of students actually stay on waitlists if they are offered a place. And given that the colleges want/need to use the waitlist admissions to redress any disporportionate losses in some microgroup of acceptees (oboists, offensive linemen, etc.), there has to be a fairly big pool from which to choose even if the number of waitlist acceptees won’t exceed a few dozen.</p>

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<p>Wailtlisted students are part of the OFFICIAL statistics such as the Common Data Set. However, they are obviously NOT counted in the preliminary announcements and “marketing” press releases. Schools do play some games ranging from Columbia’s continuing selective reporting of colleges to include or not, deliberate refusal to share meaningful information (read a certain Washington in St Louis) to not releasing the Common Data Set forms.</p>

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<p>JHS, while there are schools that use a “little” large list, others have lists that are HUGE multiples of the average waitlist admissions of the past 5 years. And, I mean, HUUUUUGE.</p>

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<p>My d said one of her friends on the UVA waitlist said it was 4,000 I think, that is INSANITY. if pictures are telling, that UVA weblog showed the buckets of thin envelopes versus the large envelopes that picture was an eye opener.</p>

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<p>Starting a list: I rounded out because some are giving decimals while others are not. Feel free to add any I missed!</p>

<p>Harvard: 7%
Yale: 8%
Princeton: ~9%
Stanford: 10%
Columbia: 10%
MIT: 12%
Dartmouth: 13%
Brown: 13%
Swarthmore: 15%
Penn: 16%
Georgetown: 18%
Bowdoin: 18%
Duke: 19%
Vanderbilt: 23%
Northwestern:25%
Barnard: 28%
Reed: 31%</p>

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<p>Adding USC:</p>

<p>Harvard: 7%
Yale: 8%
Princeton: ~9%
Stanford: ~9%
Columbia: 10%
MIT: 12%
Dartmouth: 13%
Brown: 13%
Swarthmore: 15%
Penn: 16%
Georgetown: 18%
Bowdoin: 18%
Duke: 19%
USC: 21%
Vanderbilt: 23%
Northwestern:25%
Chicago: 28%</p>

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<p>Adding Johns Hopkins (<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/johns-hopkins-university/484216-jhu-gazette-article-2012-acceptances.html):%5B/url%5D”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/johns-hopkins-university/484216-jhu-gazette-article-2012-acceptances.html):</a></p>

<p>Harvard: 7%
Yale: 8%
Princeton: ~9%
Stanford: ~9%
Columbia: 10%
MIT: 12%
Dartmouth: 13%
Brown: 13%
Swarthmore: 15%
Penn: 16%
Georgetown: 18%
Bowdoin: 18%
Duke: 19%
USC: 21%
JHU: 22%
Vanderbilt: 23%
Northwestern:25%
Chicago: 28%</p>

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<p>JHU</p>

<p>Last year’s applicant pool was a record, and this year’s was even higher: 16,006 for the targeted 1,235 spots in the schools of Arts and Sciences and Engineering. That number reflects an about 80 percent growth in the pool since 2002.</p>

<p>“The astounding thing about this applicant pool was just the quality of students who applied this year,” said John Latting, dean of undergraduate admissions. “It’s always nice to see an increase, but actually we were floored by what the students had accomplished and how well prepared they were for college.”…</p>

<p>More about the acceptances:</p>

<p>♦ Of the 3,578 admits, 49 percent are women, and 732 are minority students (351 African- American, 355 Hispanic, 26 Native American).</p>

<p>♦ Top 10 states of admits, in descending order, are New York, California, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Florida, Virginia, Texas and Connecticut.</p>

<p>♦ Students residing abroad: 254.</p>

<p>♦ Median SAT scores: critical reading 720, math 750, writing 720.</p>

<p>♦ Of the 1,564 admitted to the School of Engineering, 38 percent are women.</p>

<p>Also of note: the growth of interest in engineering in general and, specifically, in two areas. “Traditionally, everyone has thought of the Whiting School for life sciences,” Latting said, “but we really saw a surge of students interested in environmental and civil engineering. We nearly doubled what we admitted there. We’re going to be on the receiving end of concerns that students have today about the environment.”</p>

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<p>xiggi, I suspect that everyone’s number of waitlist offers is a HUUUGE multiple of average waitlist admissions for the past five years, since in some cases that may be a single-digit number, and the waitlist numbers I’ve seen have been in the vicinity of 1,000 give or take. (Not commenting on a 4,000-person waitlist at UVa, if true.) I don’t think that average waitlist admissions over the past five years is any kind of reliable standard for what waitlist admissions will be this year. Every school to which I have paid attention has accepted fewer students this year than it did last year (with the exception, I think, of Northwestern, and probably Princeton and UVa). And every school to which substantial numbers of Harvard or Princeton acceptees applied is likely to see some downward pressure on its yield on that account (which of course may be offset by other factors). </p>

<p>Conceptually, there were probably something like 1,200 highly attractive applicants out there who in prior years would never have applied anywhere but Harvard or Princeton, most of whom will be going to Harvard or Princeton. Each of them may have applied to 10 or more other colleges, and no college has any idea how many of them it may have accepted. For colleges like Penn, or Georgetown, or Chicago, or Yale and Stanford for that matter, the swing could easily be dozens of projected enrollees. Then there’s the effect of financial aid changes at the top of the foodchain, the cascading effect of possible heavy waitlist admissions at HYPS, and the obvious statistical fact that average number of applications per unique student has been increasing. Put it all together, and the range of possible waitlist admissions for any particular school could reasonably be from 0-5% of the class. </p>

<p>I have no idea how many people you have to offer a waitlist spot to in order to be in a position to pull in another 5% of your class after May 1 (maybe a long time after), and still have the ability to make some choices about whom you want to admit most. But I would bet the number is some significant multiple of that, even at Harvard. 1,000, or even 2,000 waitlist offers doesn’t seem outrageous to me if you have contingency plans that might require 100+ waitlist admissions.</p>

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<p>JHS, I respect your opinion on the wait list issue, but I also have to disagree about the validity or need of having a list that exceeds the entire RD class, especially at schools that have a large yield. </p>

<p>In addition of extending the agony of thousands of students, the domino effect makes it harder for the schools that are lower in the pecking order. </p>

<p>A waiting list intimates that there is a REASONABLE chance of admission. After one, two, or even three rounds of admissions, students deserve better having to share this polite form of non-rejection with hundreds or thousands of peers. It would be a lot simpler if the schools used a ranked waiting list as opposed of dragging thousands in a cycle of false hopes. And, in this day of instant communications between admission officers and applicants, one has to wonder how many emails Harvard or Yale would have to send to rejected applicants to offer 20 or 50 spots in the Class of 2012? Would a 50% acceptance sound right?</p>

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<p>Harvard: 7%
Yale: 8%
Princeton: ~9%
Stanford: ~9%
Columbia: 10%
MIT: 12%
Dartmouth: 13%
Brown: 13%
Swarthmore: 15%
Penn: 16%
Georgetown: 18%
Bowdoin: 18%
Claremont McKenna: 19%
Duke: 19%
USC: 21%
Vanderbilt: 23%
JHU: 25% (4017/16006)**
Northwestern:25%
Chicago: 28%</p>

<p>** On Friday, the “Yes!” envelope went out to 3,578 seniors seeking admission in 2008. Along with the early decision admits from the fall, this makes for an admitted class of 4,017, or 25 percent of the applicant pool.</p>

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<p>confirmed with D her friends letter states it is 3,000 on UVA’s waitlistm, my mistake, non the less shocking for a potential (UVA’s admission “maybe” most 150 taken off the list by previous history) kid who wants to go there</p>

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<p>Stanford is closer to 10%. Also left Chicago out because it seems like it might be higher than 28% given the blog posts.</p>