<p>AU put a story on its website today about this year’s admissions stats:</p>
<p>18,735 applications (10% increase over last year)
41% acceptance rate (2 percentage point decrease over last year’s record 43%)</p>
<p>Admitted students have an average SAT of 1300, ACT of 30, and GPA of 3.9. </p>
<p>There was a 30% increase in international applications as well.</p>
<p>So, congratulations to everyone who was admitted this year! It’s a great time to be an Eagle!</p>
<p>It seems that every college had a jump in applications this year, and a corresponding decrease in the acceptance rate. Given that, I would think the only meaningful statistic is the GPA/SAT stats of the accepted students. Any idea how they compared to last year?</p>
<p>Sad. More perfectly qualified candidates rejected.</p>
<p>GPA of 3.9? Are you sure that’s right? That seems a little bit high.</p>
<p>I can’t find said stats on the website except for 2007. Can you link?</p>
<p>3.9 GPA - weighted or unweighted?</p>
<p>Do you have a link to the article by chance?</p>
<p>Here’s the link:
[AU</a> Grows More Selective as Admit Rate Drops to Record Low | American University Washington DC](<a href=“http://www.american.edu/americantoday/campus-news/20110405-fall-2011-admit-rate.cfm]AU”>http://www.american.edu/americantoday/campus-news/20110405-fall-2011-admit-rate.cfm)</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>They admitted almost 400 more students this year than last.
Had they admitted the same number, the admit rate would have been 39%.</p>
<p>Yes, admitting more students means they expect a lower yield rate than last year. Traditionally, AU has been very bad at predicting and managing yield; we’ll see if the new group does a better job. If they’re looking for a class of 1,500, then they must expect a yield rate of 19.5%–this is lower than last year’s 20.4%, but on par with 19.3% in both 2008 and 2009. I’m reserving judgment until I see this year’s results.</p>
<p>A 1300 SAT and 3.9 GPA strikes me as an unbalanced set of stats. When you consider that some of these applicants took the SAT-optional route, and it can be assumed that their SAT’s would not have been stellar, it’s even less balanced. My guess is that the 3.9 GPA has to be weighted for this to make sense. In any event, I suspect hundreds of colleges were able to publish an article like this one, and it doesn’t mean much. Even when I was in school eons ago both my college and law school would crow every year that the incoming class was the “best ever!”</p>
<p>It is weighted. Or however the school reports it. That’s how they report the statistics.
They started using weighted in 2008. >20% of the applicants and >30% of the admitted students have a GPA over 4.0.
<a href=“http://www.american.edu/provost/oira/upload/ADRB-2009-2010.pdf[/url]”>http://www.american.edu/provost/oira/upload/ADRB-2009-2010.pdf</a></p>
<p>I believe that American uses both weighted and unweighted GPA. It all depends on what the high schools give as some high schools only give weighted and some high schools don’t. Also it does make sense that both are used as a 3.9 unweighted is a little high and a 3.9 weighted is a little low haha.</p>
<p>First, keep in kind these are the stats for <em>accepted</em> students, the stats for <em>enrolled</em> students will likely be a little lower as many of the students with super-high stats who are skewing the data will end up elsewhere, whereas many of the students with lower stats who are lucky to get in might be more likely to go.</p>
<p>The GPA stats are always a little weird because it’s not a perfectly equivalent metric across secondary education - every high school calculates it differently. So while the 3.9 is high, as stated some of those are weighted on a 5.0 scale. This is the number most likely to change between the accepted and enrolled student populations as well.</p>
<p>The SAT/ACT is a little more accurate. While there is a lot of legitimate criticism about their value as scoring tools, at least they are consistent. Also note this number might be a bit high as students with lower scores might have opted not to submit them this year.</p>
<p>Despite all of this, it is VERY notable how much AU’s stats have increased over the past decade. Even with the nationwide jumps in number of applicants, it’s pretty incredible. </p>
<p>Here’s the data:</p>
<p>Fall 1999: 7,795 applicants
Fall 2001: 10,355 applicants
Fall 2005: 13,583 applicants
Fall 2011: 18,735 applicants</p>
<p>1999-2011 = 140% increase (81% since 2001)</p>
<p>Acceptance Rate 1999: 72%
Acceptance Rate 2001: 68%
Acceptance Rate 2005: 51%
Acceptance Rate 2011: 41%</p>
<p>Average SAT 1999 (Enrolled): 1186 (of 1600)
Average SAT 2001 (Enrolled): 1210
Average SAT 2005 (Enrolled): 1267
Average SAT 2011 (Accepted): 1300</p>
<p>Note that for 2011, there isn’t data yet for enrolled students, as accepted students are still making decisions. Also noteworthy is there is no major downturn in applicants or acceptance rates in 2008, when the global recession hit (and, theoretically, more applicants preferred less expensive public schools).</p>
<p>There’s the data!</p>