<p>As many CC frequenters may know, this week has been (and will continue to be) THE week for many of the world's top prospective students. As so many of us hear back from top colleges and universities, it seems that more students than ever are receiving rejection letters. What has changed?
In the past I visited CC as a freshmen and sophomore to see what kind of students were being accepted at what kinds of universities. This year, CC seems to be flooded with way more rejected students than in the past. I personally have been rejected from 5 schools and am only awaiting a decision from USC. I'm curious to hear what other CC posters believe to be different about this year than years past. Previously, it seemed like 25-50% of CC members were accepted to Ivies or similarly prestigious schools. This year I've had trouble finding ANYONE accepted to HYPSM and even Duke for that matter. I'm also seeing that many schools RD acceptance rate is below 5%. So, what do you think is different this year. Is it the number of applicants? Strength of the applicant pool? International applicants? Or is this a normal year and I'm just biased because I'm part of the class of 2018?</p>
<p>The number of applicants has ballooned, especially in recent years, and the number of seats available at “top tier” universities has remained constant. It’s as simple as that. The difficulty of getting into “top tier” universities will continue to become harder and harder in the foreseeable future and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about that.</p>
<p>I wonder if there are more rejections as a result of perhaps more applications per student? Any ideas? </p>
<p>I got 5 rejections and 3 waitlists so I’m quite bitter too…but ya I agree with the theory of he nuber of applicants and applications. I applied to 12 schools. I have friends that applied to 14…it’s really difficult to get in at a top 25 school that people have to apply to so many schools just to get into one good college.</p>
<p>The number of applications per student will undoubtedly show a jump this year. The actual number of HS graduates has been trending downward in recent years, but applications are up. This has two sources, foreign applications, which are way up, and more applications per US student.</p>
<p>As an example, D was going to apply to 10 schools (mostly LACs, no Ivies). At the last minute, after getting deferred from her ED1 school and getting a warning from her GC that applications to top schools were up tremendously at her HS (some Top 25 schools were seeing 3x the normal number of apps from her class), she added 5 additional, lower ranked schools, for a total of 15. As it turned out, she got into her ED2 school, so we wasted some money, but we also had peace of mind that she was going to get in somewhere good, even if it wasn’t one of her top choices. The same line of thinking also seems to have become rather common throughout the country.</p>
<p>The people who get hurt in all those are those who can’t afford to shell out hundreds for additional apps. For those of us not eligible for FA, a few hundred is at the noise level, given what we’ll pay on admission, but for those who can’t get fee waivers, but need FA, applying to 10-15 schools just isn’t possible.</p>
<p>I applied to 12 schools - paid for 11 as I was granted a fee waiver at one. Paying for these applications was not easy for my Dad at all, but he did it because he saw the potential pay off of getting into a top tier school as worth it.</p>
<p>Today I got admitted to my dream school - Georgetown University (SFS) and I am still in total shock. I received 4 rejections and two waitlists, including at one of my ‘safety schools’ (I feel like they don’t really exist anymore). </p>
<p>The admissions climate is definitely getting more intense, over on the Yale thread I think I maybe saw one acceptance. There are so many qualified applicants its a bit of a lottery- I feel like students should really take advantage of the essays in this situation, as they are a chance to distinguish yourself and get the admissions people to connect with you personally. I love to write and I think my essays must have really helped me.</p>
<p>I wonder how this trend will shift the college market over the long term (next 15 years, say, three cycles). Would there be a domino effect, if highly prepared students start filtering down from Ivy/top 20 rejections into the next “lower tier” and wind up boosting that tier’s stats. Will the strata of “top ranked” schools broaden? What will be the impact of the student loan bubble and the shrinking of the American middle class added to the mix? And, which level of schools will tap the full-pay international student pool the most? And, then there are the MOOCs. Can anyone point me to some good futurists on US UG education? </p>
<p>dyiu, hard to say what the future holds. Maybe Havard will accept 10K students in the future with the large majority being online. Impossible you say, but I thought the same about grad schools and now Ga Tech has their online Comp Sci degree for under 10K. </p>
<p>Colleges accepted more students in the ED / EA round and less in the regular decision round. This was largely driven by students applying to 15+ schools. But yeah, admissions this year was rough…some of my friends got denied/waitlisted to EVERY school they applied except for the state flagship (and they are extremely smart).</p>
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<p>From my experience, it seems like this is already happening. The 15-50 range of colleges is becoming a desired target for top students that would have otherwise considered them matches/safeties in previous years. NYU and Northeastern are two I have noticed due to my research and applications to them. Umichigan also seems to only be rising. Point is, there is a lot of upward stat trending in the 15-50 range.</p>
<p>I was the laziest guy in my class: applied only to seven schools. The next-laziest applied to thirteen. The next-next-laziest applied to 16. Almost every other applicant chose 18 or more. Think about that.</p>
<p>Oh, did I mention that we’re also internationals, and many of us had been accepted already by pretty good schools, so many us didn’t put a single real safety?</p>
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<p>Go look at the forums for each of those colleges. The official results threads seem to have lots of acceptances (like, dozens…) because kids who are accepted to their top choice(s) are generally more interested in posting their stats and whatnot on those forums.</p>
<p>Not saying this year wasn’t tough, just that if you actually want to see CC acceptances, that’s where to look.</p>
<p>@OHMomof2 There’s like 5 people who got accepted at Stanford RD</p>
<p>I’d also argue that many colleges filled up their class with ED students this year. (At least. more than in years prior)</p>
<p>@Vctory Yeah I also noticed that…it’s due to colleges realizing that a lot of students apply to 20 colleges now, and the only good way to realize if a student is interested is if they apply early.</p>
<p>No offense, but maybe it’d bcuz CC Is less and less attracting the best applicants and more average students.</p>
<p>@FigLeaves I wish the colleges could just accept a lower yield rate instead of rejecting so many more students lol. </p>
<p>Duke was crazy. </p>
<p>Class size of 1700, accepted 800 ED. </p>
<p>900 spots open for RD. </p>
<p>200 (a conservative estimate) URM/1st gen/low-income hooked applicants? 700 spots open for RD. </p>
<p>100 athletes? 600 spots open for RD. </p>
<p>50 accepted legacy kids? 550 spots open for RD. </p>
<p>32,000 total applicants, 3,191 ED, ~29,000 RD applicants, 450 hooked applicants with easier admissions criteria.</p>
<p>28,450 unhooked applicants for <550 seats. </p>
<p>Real acceptance rate for unhooked RD candidates? 1.9%.</p>
<p>That’s messed up.</p>
<p>Does it really seem that different this year? What I am noticing is a lot of students surprised that they didn’t get into tippy-top reach schools with acceptance rates less than 10%. It surprises me that so many students apply to so many big name reach schools, and so few schools that they are more likely to get into. And some people who get into great schools like Rice, WashU and UofC are complaining if they didn’t get into HYPSM, and can’t understand it. It’s hard for me to understand that attitude.
It seems that those who applied widely, with a mix of match as well as a couple of safeties that they really wouldn’t mind attending, have good choices. </p>
<p>@moonchild Some of my friends got denied from WashU and UofC and Northwestern and Emory…which should have been matches (historically Emory was a safety, as well as Northwestern and WashU)</p>
<p>@Vctory I completely agree haha, all my friends who applied to Duke ED got in (which was great), but for people like me it doesn’t work out so well. I’m hesitant to apply ED as I don’t know what kind of aid I would get, and being binding it might not work out too well. I wish more schools had SCEA.</p>
<p>for what it’s worth, 3 kids from my D’s tough urban high school were accepted to Harvard. And the crazy part is that only 3 applied. And the crazier part is that all 3 have parents that went to college. So no obvious hooks…just very lucky smart kids. </p>