<p>@cjeezus if those numbers are for the entire admissions season then that would be a huge drop.</p>
<p>@quotable yeah that’s why i’m a bit skeptical, but i also find it hard to believe that the acceptance rate has gone up from 15% last year to 17% this year, especially since they apparently under-predicted yield rate last year and ended up with more students than expected.</p>
<p>Washington University in St. Louis: 5,002 offers out of 29,211 apps, 17 percent.</p>
<p>What’s strange is if they truly sent out 5002 acceptances then that would be huge jump in acceptances from previous years. And, if they did under estimate the yield values last year then wouldn’t there a decrease in acceptances this year…
class of 2015: 4763 offers
<a href=“http://wustl.edu/policies/assets/pdfs/wustl%20cds%202011-2012.pdf”>http://wustl.edu/policies/assets/pdfs/wustl%20cds%202011-2012.pdf</a>
Class of 2016: 4876 offers
<a href=“http://wustl.edu/policies/assets/pdfs/wustl%20cds%202012-2013.pdf”>http://wustl.edu/policies/assets/pdfs/wustl%20cds%202012-2013.pdf</a>
Class of 2017: 4520 offers<br>
<a href=“2013 College Acceptance Rates - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com”>2013 College Acceptance Rates - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com;
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/college-admission-rates-for-class-of-2018-an-imperfect-but-closely-watched-metric/2014/04/03/820ff578-b6af-11e3-8cc3-d4bf596577eb_story.html”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/college-admission-rates-for-class-of-2018-an-imperfect-but-closely-watched-metric/2014/04/03/820ff578-b6af-11e3-8cc3-d4bf596577eb_story.html</a></p>
<p>^ It still doesn’t make sense. Maybe they meant, like, 4002 offers or something?</p>
<p>Why doesn’t this make sense? Why is it a big deal that the admit rate crept up to 17% over last year’s 15%? Applications were down 3% year over year so one would expect the admit rate to climb. The rates and offers have been very volatile but they suggest 5002 offers is more likely the right number than 4002:</p>
<p>2010 5285 offers out of 24939 apps, 21 percent.
2011 4763 offers out of 28823 apps, 16.5 percent
2012 4876 offers out of 27265 apps, 17.9 percent
2013 4520 offers out of 30117 apps 15.0 percent
2014 5002 offers out of 29,211 apps, 17.1 percent.</p>
<p>It’s problematic because yield has been on the rise so making more offers means more than the desired 1650 will enroll. </p>
<p>Yield has been on the rise because more admissions are coming through early decision. Historically, yield on regular decision has been more steady. According to a Wash U press release in January over 630 were offered early admission representing just over 35% of the incoming class. Assuming a 24% yield on regular decision (the yield rate on two of the past three years for which public data is available) , the freshman class would be 1679 (with early admits representing 37.5% of the incoming class). </p>