Total Applications Growth/Decline, class of 2017

Applying to College
221

<p>this appears to be an updated Skidmore report (to alumni association). A few more apps, but notably some speculation why such an increase…</p>

<p>Skidmore + 42.7% (8,143)
<a href=“http://cms.skidmore.edu/alumni_association/meetings/feb2013/upload/AdmissionsReportFeb2013.pdf[/url]”>http://cms.skidmore.edu/alumni_association/meetings/feb2013/upload/AdmissionsReportFeb2013.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>

</p>

222

<p>Rhode Island <+1.76% (“close to” 21,000)
[URI:</a> A Record-breaking Number of Applicants for Fall 2013 | Rhode Island Public Radio](<a href=“TPR : The Public's Radio : TPR”>TPR : The Public's Radio : TPR)</p>

<p>source for last year’s apps: [University</a> of Rhode Island Insitutional Research](<a href=“http://www.uri.edu/ir/common.html]University”>http://www.uri.edu/ir/common.html)</p>

223

<p>correction on…
Scripps +0.13% (2,376)
[5Cs</a> Release Admissions Statistics<a href=“this%205C%20article%20was%20previously%20posted%20but%20I%20hadn’t%20noticed%20the%20update%20to%20Scripps%20from%20the%20NYT%20info”>/url</a></p>

<p>Also…the final CMC app # is 5509 (not 5510 I had back-calculated from a previous CMC release) therefore CMC apps +8.9% (last year: 5058, source: <a href=“http://www.cmc.edu/ir/factsheets/Fact-Sheet-2012-13.pdf[/url]”>http://www.cmc.edu/ir/factsheets/Fact-Sheet-2012-13.pdf](<a href=“http://tsl.pomona.edu/articles/2013/2/8/news/3538-5cs-release-admissions-statistics]5Cs”>5Cs Release Admissions Statistics - The Student Life)</a> )</p>

224

<p>re-sort</p>

<p>Skidmore +42.7% (8,143)
Northern Kentucky >+30% (no app count)
Clark +27.8% (5,472)
Ohio State +25.6% (35,300)
Case Western +25% (18,226)
UChicago +20% (30,369)
Boston U +19.4% (52,532)
UCSC +16.9% (38,507)
UC Merced +16.6% (14,966)
Ohio U +15.8% (20,236)
U Washington +15.7% (30,073)
St Lawrence +14.4% (3,080)
Brandeis +14.2% (9,370)
UCSB +13.9% (62,402)
UC Riverside +13.2% (33,809)
UC Davis +13.1% (55,877)
Kalamazoo +13% (>2,400)
Tufts +12.4% (18,410)
WPI +12.0% (8,498)
UC Irvine +11.3% (60,619)
NYU +11.2% (48,606) [all campuses including Shanghai & Abu Dhabi]
Alma +11.1% (1,820)
UCLA +10.8% (80,472)
UCSD +10.8% (67,403)
Babson +10.3% (6,080)
Pepperdine +10% (10,443)
UC Berkeley +9.7% (67,658)
Emerson +9.7% (7,756)
Cal Poly, SLO +9.4% (40,404)
Vanderbilt +9.2% (30,950+)
Claremont McKenna +8.9% (5,509)
Lehigh +8.7% (12,548)
Rochester +8.2% (17,146)
U Texas >+7.3% (>38,000)
Colgate +7.0% (8,346)
Northeastern +7.0 (47,322)
Miami U +6.3% (21,593)
San Diego State is +6.0% (53,760)
St Andrews +6% (14,355)
RPI +~6% (16,112)
Stanford +5.9% (38,800)
Bates +5.9% (5,194)
Trinity +5.7% (7,500)
NC State +5.5% (calc’d to be >21,384, count incomplete)
Columbia +5.1% (33,460)
Fordham +5.0% (35,229)
MIT +~4.9% (almost 18,989)
Bowdoin +4.7% (7,029)
Wesleyan +4.5% (10,969)
U North Carolina +4.0% (30,689)
U Southern Cal +3.7% (47,800)
Virginia +3.5% (~29,250)
SUNY Binghamton +3.4% (29,089)
Barnard +3.3% (5,609)
Colby +2.8% (5,390)
Yale +2.8% (29,790)
Vermont +2.7% (22,277)
Middlebury +2.6% (9,075)
William & Mary +2.5% (14,000)
Union +2.5% (5,643)
Olin +2.4% (800)
CU Boulder +2.3% (22,287)
Northwestern +2.2% (32,766)
Harvard +2.1% (35,022)
Rhode Island <+1.76% (“close to” 21,000)
Rice +1.4% (15,345)
Smith +1.4% (4,402)
Emory +0.91% (17,652)
George Washington +0.87% (21,946)
Juilliard +0.82% (2,338)
JHU +0.52% (20,608)
Duke +0.4% (31,752)
Swarthmore +0.24% (6,632)
Brown +0.22% (28,733)
Villanova +0.21% (14,933)
Scripps +0.13% (2,376)
Penn +0.00% (31,219)
Caltech -0.02% (5,536)
Georgetown -0.12% (20,025)
Grinnell -0.57% (4,528)
Princeton -0.59% (26,505)
Holy Cross -1.3% (7,079)
Harvey Mudd -1.6% (3,537)
Hamilton -1.8% (5,017)
Elon -2.5% (9,791)
Pitzer -2.9% (4,103)
Dartmouth -3.0% (22,416)
Williams -3.3% (6,836)
Bucknell -3.6% (7,834)
Vassar -3.9% (7,600)
Pomona ~-4.8% (~7,100)
Amherst -7.7% (7,908)
RPI -10.7% (13,600)
Boston College -26% (~25,000) </p>

<p>median 4.7%-4.9%</p>

225

<p>RPI is listed twice but the correct one is the +6%…I was accepted and got an email about a record number of applications so it is impossible for the percentage to be negative</p>

226

<p>my bad, right you are cchlloe. That -10.7% for the 2nd RPI entry (post 87) is what NYT originally reported (and still has on their website), before the vastly different school report was published(post 210.) I will remove it at the next list update.</p>

227

<p>Thanks Papa Chicken! Not your fault, everyone finds different statistics.</p>

228

<p>revision: Clark +29.0% (5,545)
[GoLocalWorcester</a> | News | NEW: Clark Applications Up an ?Astounding? 29 Percent](<a href=“GoLocalWorcester | Clark Applications Up an ‘Astounding’ 29 Percent”>GoLocalWorcester | Clark Applications Up an ‘Astounding’ 29 Percent)</p>

229

<p>Pennsylvania State University application down 9%. So,</p>

<p>Penn State ~-9% (~43272)</p>

<p>[Erickson</a> says Penn State’s applications running behind last year - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette](<a href=“http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/state/erickson-says-penn-states-applications-running-behind-last-year-679471/]Erickson”>http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/state/erickson-says-penn-states-applications-running-behind-last-year-679471/)</p>

230

<p>How about WashU STL statisitcs?</p>

231

<p>thanks XtremePower. Where did that apps # come from, as I do not see it in the linked article?</p>

<p>gocardin- save your breath, as Wash U SL is one of the least transparent schools out there. They don’t share anything as a rule and do not post their common data set, as virtually all self-respecting institutions do…heck, even Harvard does now. Not sure why, other than to speculate that it may be related to other “pushing the envelope” practices they seem to embrace like exceptionally heavy use of their waitlist which viewed cyncically would be intended to boost their selectivity. Not that I have an opinion :)</p>

232

<p>Oh I calculated it using the data from college board about Fall 2012 number of applications. </p>

<p><a href=“BigFuture College Search”>BigFuture College Search;

233

<p>This information is fascinating. Thank you for all the hard work in pulling it together.</p>

<p>Clearly the huge increase in applications to schools is having a significant impact on what students are hearing from admissions offices this week. Those who might have expected to get into a mid-tier school might only be waitlisted or even rejected.</p>

<p>I’m curious whether the increase in applications is due to a bigger student pool or due to students applying to more schools. What would contribute to a larger pool? Perhaps an influx of international students or the availability of financial assistance. Or are students simply applying to more schools to cover themselves? If that’s the case, does it snowball as more students apply to more schools because they’re afraid of being rejected by schools that are seeing more applications because students are covering themselves because more schools are rejecting…you get my drift. And wondering if some of these schools that are lowering their acceptance rate in the face of more applications are going to get burned at some point.</p>

<p>Any thoughts?</p>

234

<p>I think it is more applications. My DD applied to 13 this year. She probably would have been fine with 10, however she was deferred from her SCEA in December and we threw in 3 more just to make sure before end of year.</p>

235

<p>offcampus, yes, I posed some similar questions on this thread a few pages back. On another thread it was proposed that the growing number of applications is due to the ease of the Common App, but it was not our experience that the Common App makes things all that much easier, given the supplements; and financial aid application procedures still vary greatly despite FAFSA and the CSS. Even just the inevitable technological glitches make the process more difficult.</p>

<p>I actually think that between the recession, the panicked middle class, and this increasingly perverse application system, we are creating a generation of students who are fearful and desperate to cover themselves in any way possible, and that that as much as anything is driving up the number of places students are applying to. I’m sure it is also driving plenty of bright lower income students away from applying to competitive institutions at all…my daughter has many talented friends at her magnet public high school who are planning to go to low-cost, uncompetitive institutions partly just to stay out of this miserable process.</p>

<p>Surely a country with this incredible higher education system, with its amazing number and mixture of superb public and private institutions, can do better?</p>

236

<p>UVa +6.7% (29,005)
[UVa</a> admits 8,528 for the Class of 2017 - Washington DC College admissions | Examiner.com](<a href=“http://www.examiner.com/article/uva-admits-8-528-for-the-class-of-2017]UVa”>http://www.examiner.com/article/uva-admits-8-528-for-the-class-of-2017)</p>

<p>offcampus- myriad reasons…in the face of a shrinking US high school graduating population, which should eventually start taking these application numbers down, there appear to be a variety of causes for application increases. If you get some time, read through this thread and you will see many discussed. A few off the top of my head:

  • more college recruiting, outreach and marketing (this is a big one I believe at least for many of the schools reported on this thread, especially the ones with big increases)
  • increased ease of applying when the common app is adopted
  • increased ease of applying when a school drops its essay requirement or something similar (e.g., BU)
  • application fee waiving
  • growing trend of applying early and to many because the odds of acceptance are decreasing
  • increased interest from internationals (and increased marketing to them)</p>

<p>Much of the above is directed by a school to increase its applicant pool, which of course superficially boosts there selectivity aura. They are scrambling in the face of fewer US students planning to enroll in college.</p>

237

<p>this Northwestern headline points to a trumpeted piece of the marketing cycle stoking up interest, driving up application numbers, thereby driving down acceptance rate (increaased selectivity), creating an impression of a higher quality school, which then boosts interest & applications in the future.
[The</a> Daily Northwestern : Northwestern acceptance rate drops to all-time low of 13.9 percent](<a href=“http://dailynorthwestern.com/2013/03/23/top-stories/2017-nu-admits-record-low-13-9-percent-of-freshman-for-class-of-2017/]The”>Northwestern acceptance rate drops to all-time low of 13.9 percent)</p>

<p>While the colleges behavior appears to me to be in-line with normal capitalism and marketing (especially considering the future dwindling supply of college-going HS graduates), the dynamics of this situation are certainly no fun as a stakeholder on the “buy-side” (applicant), as most of us know.</p>

238

<p>Yes, Papa Chicken, based on my experience I agree that marketing is a major factor in the increase of applications. And that’s in part a consequence (as well as a cause) of the extraordinary success of the private side of higher education in the US, so you wouldn’t want to get rid of it entirely. But it’s also the layers of marketing, so to speak – such as US News trying to sustain itself in the face of the current pressures on the news industry by marketing its endless lists, and through its success enforcing a series of crude ranking criteria that unbalance the whole system. </p>

<p>Where can I find more about the dwindling numbers of college-attending high school graduates and the impact of that on admissions offices? Very interesting…Again, many many thanks for this fascinating information and thread.</p>

239

<p>ardent- my pleasure, this is interesteing stuff. This article is worth a read:
[College</a> Admissions and the Myth of Higher Selectivity | TIME.com](<a href=“http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/20/college-admissions-the-myth-of-higher-selectivity/]College”>College Admissions and the Myth of Higher Selectivity | TIME.com)</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>That Times piece cited this Inside Higher Ed article, which is also worth reading:
<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/11/29/study-documents-admissions-trends-over-last-10-years[/url]”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/11/29/study-documents-admissions-trends-over-last-10-years&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Intro

</p>

240

<p>Bryn Mawr >+2.8% (2,700+)
[Today?s</a> the Day For Bryn Mawr?s Class of 2017 : News](<a href=“http://news.brynmawr.edu/2013/03/21/todays-the-day-for-bryn-mawrs-class-of-2017/]Today?s”>http://news.brynmawr.edu/2013/03/21/todays-the-day-for-bryn-mawrs-class-of-2017/)</p>

<p>source for class of 2016 apps: <a href=“http://www.brynmawr.edu/institutionalresearch/documents/CDS_2012-2013.pdf[/url]”>http://www.brynmawr.edu/institutionalresearch/documents/CDS_2012-2013.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;