<p>TheDartmouth.com</a> | College receives record number of applications</p>
<p>^ Interesting point made by Dartmouth's Dean of Admissions, however. She expects applications to increase (and selectivity to rise) at lower-cost public institutions and at the small number of privates, including the Ivies, that promise to meet 100% of financial need. Colleges "that have tuition similar to the Ivy League" but "don't have the strength of our financial aid" might "be seen as risky choices" in the current economy.</p>
<p>That assessment seems to be broadly consistent with the smattering of reports on application data we've seen so far---up at publics, up at Ivies and similarly well-heeled privates with generous financial aid policies, mixed elsewhere.</p>
<p>I think that if the Ivy League schools' admissions offices were intellectually honest they would offer students for $5 (or no cost) a prescreening of their credentials and tell them whether or not they should even bother to apply. I have to think at least 50% of the applicants have absolutely no chance of getting admitted.</p>
<p>Instead of soliciting applications from students that have no chance wouldn't it be nice if they told students not to waste their time, energy and money with an application? But then they wouldn't be able to boast that they received umpty gazillion applications and that their acceptance rate this year dropped to .04%</p>
<p>I agree NJers, especially seeing here who's applying. But I think the common data sets are the screen, kids just don't want to believe them.</p>
<p>When you look who was rejected ED at schools like Dartmouth (legacies with 2250's!) you realize it has gotten really difficult and random for even the qualified.</p>
<p>I'm wondering if the bad aid privates will be accepting more this year expecting lower yields.</p>
<p>"The original version of this article incorrectly stated that the target class size of the Class of 2013 is 2,200 students. In fact, that number refers to the total number of students the College intends to accept, for a final class size of between 1,090 and 1,100 students."</p>
<p>Even the Dartmouth kids have a hard time keeping accepted and enrolled stats straight.</p>
<p>hmom5, I've looked at common data sets but there seems to be so much more to it for the top colleges. Okay, so my kid looks like he has a chance. Except no one in our family attended and he's not an athlete. And so on.</p>
<p>It makes sense to me that schools that promise to meet 100% of financial need are going to be getting a lot more applications.</p>
<p>What is interesting is that even at those schools which promise (and do) meet 100% of need, there has always been 50% of the class who are full-pay. I wonder if that number will go down...now that we are in these perilous times.</p>
<p>Harvard's financial aid is a lot more generous than MIT, with today's economy, I am guessing Harvard will have a much higher application volume than MIT.....</p>
<p>Pug, when you look at the CDS of the highly selective schools, consider that 40% are in the groups you mention: recruited athletes (17%), URMs (20%), legacies and develoment (10ish%) and of course there's some overlap.</p>
<p>So an unhooked kid with a good shot is probably pretty close to the 75th percentile stats unless they provide geographical diversity, are from under performing schools, are low income, etc.</p>
<p>When I look at it that way, the results seem much more predictable.</p>
<p>Ellem, if the percent on aid does not go up this year, can any of us believe these schools are truly need blind?</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think that if the Ivy League schools' admissions offices were intellectually honest they would offer students for $5 (or no cost) a prescreening of their credentials and tell them whether or not they should even bother to apply. I have to think at least 50% of the applicants have absolutely no chance of getting admitted.</p>
<p>Instead of soliciting applications from students that have no chance wouldn't it be nice if they told students not to waste their time, energy and money with an application? But then they wouldn't be able to boast that they received umpty gazillion applications and that their acceptance rate this year dropped to
.04%
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ohhhh, man. That's probably the smartest, most insightful thing I've ever read on this site. Not a joke here; I mean that sincerely.</p>
<p>You are waaayyyy ahead of the curve.</p>
<p>Are you a student? A parent with a lot of experience? Just a very smart person?</p>
<p>hmom5: </p>
<p>Very few highly selective colleges have 20% URMs, 17% recruited athletes is waaay high, unless you're talking about a tiny college like Amherst, "developmentals" are negligible as a percentage, 1-3 individuals/year, and legacies are probably more than 10% everywhere but also probably equal or better to the average in grades and scores. And, remember, the kids with the higher scores are the ones who are most likely to have other options (and thus less likely to enroll), so at a college like Dartmouth that admits 2x the number of kids they expect to enroll, the 75th percentile of the enrolled class in any particular metric is probably more like the 50th (or lower) percentile of the group admitted. I know from lots of experience, my own and others, that being well above the 75th percentile (in cases where that's possible) in everything doesn't equate to a 1-in-3chance of admission. For legacies. With geographical diversity. Grades and scores are important, but don't tell you much about who is going to be admitted.</p>
<p>Someone speculated that Harvard would get more applications than MIT this year because MIT's financial aid is not as good. Of course it will -- Harvard has been running at about 200% of MIT's applications for years. MIT's applications seem to have gone up a lot this year -- I think the EA applications were up over 20%. The University of Chicago, which claims to meet need but seems to do so in a less liberal manner than HYP, had a decrease in EA applications this year, but has reported a 17% increase in total applications. So, so much for that theory.</p>
<p>
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"developmentals" are negligible as a percentage, 1-3 individuals/year
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</p>
<p>I find this 'developmental group' fascinating. Is this just your hunch or do you base this on info? </p>
<p>I just look at my D's classmates, and I can easily see several dozen families who could 'develop' their child into an Ivy if it's how it works. You know, families that own whole islands, who retired at 40 when they sold their corporation in X country, whose work involves 'running the foundation', or whose own parents have a wing named after them at Harvard. And this is at a tiny school in a laid back city not even located in the US! So when I extrapolate from this little world, I can only imagine how many such families must reside in the NE or the US as a whole. And how much does it cost to buy your child into one's favorite school? </p>
<p>I truly wonder.</p>
<p>JHS, I'm pretty confident of those percentages and they are cited in several books including those by Hernandez and The Price Of Admission by Golden. They are numbers for ivies.</p>
<p>Starbright, working on Wall Street I myself have known several every year at the mid tier ivies. I fundraise for Penn and know their number is WAY more than a few per year. Great wealth has been created in this Country in the past 2 decades and top colleges for your kids has been as much in demand as yachts and private planes. I do believe my 10% legacy/development was conservative, an indicative of thee lowest percentage at an ivy.</p>
<p>This is from the recent 'dirty secrets' article:</p>
<p>Michele Hernandez, nationally known private college admissions consultant located in Vermont. Author of the book A is Admissions: The Insider's Guide to Getting into the Ivy League and Other Top Colleges and former admissions officer at Dartmouth College</p>
<p>“40 percent of every Ivy League school is filled up with special cases: athletes, minorities, low-income, legacies or development cases. They’re tagged, and schools lower the admissions standards a lot for those kids. So you got to know how to use those tags to your advantage. If you’re a legacy and you apply early to the school, you’ve got a 50 percent better chance of getting in.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Class of 2011 Early Decision Admissions :</p>
<p>The students — 193 males and 189 females — were notified of their admission to the College on Dec. 7, 2006.</p>
<p>Recruited athletes -- of which there were 120 -- comprised about 31 percent of the admitted group. According to Furstenberg, the majority of athletic recruitment in the Ivy League is accomplished through early admissions programs, a process he said is a "fairly efficient way" to enroll recruited athletes in the absence of athletic scholarships.</p>
<p>The geographic distribution of admitted students showed a strong variation from previous years with a large decrease in students from the Northeast. Ninety-one students were admitted from New England and 110 students were admitted from the Mid-Atlantic</p>
<p>Thirty admitted students live outside the United States and 23 are non-citizens, making up the largest number of international students ever to be admitted to the College during early decision.</p>
<p>Approximately 50 percent of those accepted attended public school, down from 59 percent in 2005. Of the 382 admitted applicants, 45 percent attended private school and 5 percent attended parochial.</p>
<p>Fifty-eight of the accepted students were legacies, a slight drop from the 60 legacies admitted early last year.</p>
<p>Valedictorians made up 27 percent of the admits, salutatorians 10 percent and students in the top tenth of their class 90 percent. Among accepted students the mean SAT verbal score was 702, the mean SAT math score 713 and the mean SAT writing score 701.</p>
<p>Despite slight fluctuations among groups, the total number of students of color admitted early remained similar to last year; 70 students of color were admitted early to the College this year, compared to 71 students in 2005.</p>
<p>TheDartmouth.com</a> | Early decision numbers hold steady for ‘11 class</p>
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<p>Class of 2012, first class admitted under Lakaris</p>
<p>
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</p>
<p>Following the most competitive admissions year in the College’s history, 1,120 students plan to matriculate in the Class of 2012, according to Maria Laskaris, dean of admissions and financial aid.</p>
<p>The matriculating group — 560 men and 560 women — represents a 51 percent yield from the 2,190 admitted students, Laskaris said, compared to the 53 percent matriculation rate of those admitted to the Class of 2011. </p>
<p>Of the 16,538 applicants, the highest number in Dartmouth’s history, only 13.2 percent received offers of admission, Laskaris said.</p>
<p>The Class of 2012 represents an overall increase in diversity from the Class of 2011, Laskaris said. Students in the Class of 2012 hail from 42 countries and all 50 states, she added.</p>
<p>At 26.3 percent, students from the Mid-Atlantic represent the largest matriculating geographic group, Laskaris said. Many students also hail from New England and the West, at 19.4 and 19.3 percent, respectively.</p>
<p>One hundred members of the Class of 2012 identify themselves as African-American, a 1.3 percent increase from the Class of 2011 and the highest percentage matriculating in over 20 years, the Admissions Office reported. </p>
<p>The percentage of the students who identified as Latino and Native American also increased slightly from last year.</p>
<p>Students in the Class of 2012 come from 820 high schools worldwide — 56 percent of the matriculating group attended public school, a drop from 59.1 percent of the Class of 2011, 38.1 percent attended private school and 5.1 percent attended parochial schools. The Class of 2012 also saw a two percent increase in high school valedictorians and a one percent increase in salutatorians. </p>
<p>“Right now, we’ve got about 30 students over our target class size,” she said. “Given all the wait list activity at some of our peer institutions, though, I don’t think it’s going to be quite enough to fill the class.”</p>
<p>TheDartmouth.com</a> | Admissions yields 51 percent matriculation</p>
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</p>
<p>Final count according to the CDS</p>
<p>1096 students</p>
<p>Black, non-Hispanic 103 (9.39%)
American Indian or Alaska Native 44 (4.014%)
Asian or Pacific Islander 163 (14.87%)
Hispanic 88 (8.029%)</p>
<p>Total minority enrollment - 398 (36.31%)</p>
<p>URM = 235 (21.44%)</p>
<p>If #s are pretty consistent year over year, athletes make up ~ 10% of the freshman class.</p>
<p>Another thing I note is that in recent years, the gap seems be narrowing between the level of students at 'lower ivies' and HPYS. I mean this to include they non ivies of the same stature. Cornell/Penn/Duke/Northwestern not nearly as different from the tipy top college populations. Lots of chance/subject factors between the 2 groups.</p>
<p>Sybbie, I'd like to get to the bottom of the athlete numbers, I've repeatedly seen 17%. Any guess how to break out the 40% number so often cited?</p>
<p>heyalb: I feel that most people who have been at CC regularly for a month know that the Ivies and Ivy clones admission rates are in inflated do to parents saying "what the heck, you should apply, its HARVARD" or something. I know that if only qualified applicants applied admission rates would be in the mid to upper 30s. Look at uChicago, a very self selective school in that people who apply, don't apply because of the name (it is not a name brand school) but apply for the academics. Usually these people have higher stats, which is why uChicago has similar SAT/ACT ranges to the ivies, but a 30%+ admission rate. Same goes for most LACs (such as Reed, Grinnell, Carleton, Oberlin, etc) that don't have much name recognition and therefore have much more qualified applicants, but have less of them. When you look at test scores at top schools, most of them are very similar, but one has a lower acceptance rate. So it goes to show that both are equally selective, but one has more applicants...</p>
<p>a few years ago, the D ran a series of articles about admissions.</p>
<p>Aricle # 5 in the series</p>
<p>
[quote]
In admissions, many get 'special' attention</p>
<p>By Zachary Goldstein
The Dartmouth (Dartmouth College)
05/13/2004</p>
<p>(U-WIRE) HANOVER, N.H. — Minorities, legacies and elite high schools — all seem to benefit during the admissions process. With acceptance rates above average for these groups, is the average well-rounded applicant facing an uphill climb? Yes and no. </p>
<p>But acceptance rates are not high only for these groups. Athletes and students with 800 SAT scores also gain admission at a disproportionately high rate, Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg said. Rates are also higher for students with exceptional essays and above-4.0 GPAs. With so many people applying for admission at one of the top 10 schools in the country, it takes a combination of many factors to get that thick envelope come April. </p>
<p>*On the other hand, roughly 40 percent of applicants are given some sort of extra attention — minorities, legacies or athletes. This year, 24 percent of applicants were students of color, 3 percent legacies, and roughly 13 to 17 percent were athletes, based on estimates. This 40 percent of the applicants has a combined admit rate nearly double the overall level. *</p>
<p>Athletic admissions statistics are not released by the admissions office. Some speculate that athletes — particularly those for big sports — are given the highest preference of all. This does not appear to be the case at Dartmouth, although athletes do benefit from having a lobbyist in their coach. Coaches submit ranked lists of their recruited athletes to the admissions office. The admissions office then reviews the applications, taking into account the applicant's athletic talent and coach's recommendation. </p>
<p>"Athletic talent works in the same way other kinds of talent do. The only difference is it's a much more organized and structured recruiting process and that's a function of the NCAA and the Ivy League rules," Furstenberg said. "They tell us who they want, but there are no guaranteed number of slots." </p>
<p>But even with the ability to submit a list, some coaches expressed frustration with how little say they really have. </p>
<p>"How much clout do I have? Minimal," men's swimming coach Jim Wilson said. "If you look at my SAT scores and compare to the average SAT scores, my kids may be getting in with a 1450 instead of a 1460." </p>
<p>Wilson did, however, speculate that some of the "higher-profile sports like football may be getting a little more help." </p>
<p>Coaches are given little feedback from the admissions office before submitting their lists, according to Wilson. "I'm shooting blind," he said, adding that other schools, even in the Ivy League, are actually more lenient with athletic admissions. </p>
<p>"Some schools will say 'if he has this GPA and this SAT score were going to let him in.' Our admissions doesn't do that," Wilson said. </p>
<p>Michele Hernandez '89, who worked in the Dartmouth College admissions office in the mid-1990s and is currently a private college counselor, concurred. </p>
<p>"Dartmouth actually has higher standards for athletes than most schools," she said. "Many athletes that are walking straight into Harvard couldn't get into Dartmouth." </p>
<p>While athletic talent can bolster an application, it does not replace other criteria for admission, according to Furstenberg. If coaches do not find well qualified applicants to put on their list, they risk not getting enough players that year. </p>
<p>"If the coaches say we need nine soccer players this year, but we only think six of them are qualified, that's what they get," he said. "All of the decisions are made here; the only person at the institution who can admit someone is me." </p>
<p>Based on acceptance rates alone, African-American students have the best chance of getting into Dartmouth, with legacies right behind them. African Americans were accepted into the Class of 2008 at a rate of 44.6 percent, while legacies had a 35.4 percent acceptance rate. Native Americans and Latinos enjoyed acceptance rates of 34.6 and 29 percent, respectively. </p>
<p>With so much of the applicant pool enjoying these benefits, it leaves others receiving below-average acceptance rates. </p>
<p>White Americans, who make up over 60 percent of applicants, had an acceptance rate of 16.2 percent. International students had the hardest time getting into Dartmouth, accepted at a rate of only 10.2 percent. </p>
<p>"Roughly 40 percent of applicants are 'tagged' in some way. That means 60 percent aren't," Hernandez said. "Overall, the SAT average is not coming from the 40 percent tagged acceptances. The 60 percent have to have higher numbers to pull up the tagged applicants getting a break." </p>
<p>Breaking down statistics from the Class of 2008 applicant pool, the "tagged" applicants are not the only ones receiving a bit of an advantage. Because more male applicants apply to Dartmouth, but the goal male-to-female ratio of the admit class is 50:50, male applicants were accepted at a below-average rate of 16.8 percent, while female applicants were accepted at a rate of 20.1 percent. This difference will likely continue unless female applications catch up with their male counterparts. </p>
<p>But what does all this mean? Well, for one, that no matter how you look at it and no matter who you are, Dartmouth is one of the most selective institutions in the country. </p>
<p>"There are probably no more than about 50 institutions in America that admit less than 50 percent of their applicants," Furstenberg said, "and you wouldn't find any population in our pool that gets admitted above 50 percent." </p>
<p>The other interpretation? If you're an African American female legacy who plays hockey and has at least one 800 SAT score and a GPA above 4.0 ... welcome to Dartmouth. </p>
<p>TheDartmouth.com</a> | In admissions, many get ‘special’ attention</p>
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<p>Link to the thread where I posted the rest of the articles from that series (post 19-24).</p>
<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/dartmouth-college/546318-research-d-2.html?highlight=recruited+athletes%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/dartmouth-college/546318-research-d-2.html?highlight=recruited+athletes</a>
Hope this helps</p>
<p>S</p>
<p>Very helpful Sybbie! Is it possible the other ivies have 7% more athletes than Dartmouth thanks to Mr. Furstenberg? Will Ms. Laskaris usher in a new era? The ED SAT scores look to have gone down and support Michele Hernandez's claim that the non hooked applicants will need to bring them up during the RD round.</p>
<p>You nailed it, SmallCollegesFTW. I spoke tonight to a friend whose son attends the top private high school in my state. The son has a friend who hopes to attend a top LAC that many haven't heard of. The ivy league will be left in the dust by this young man. (I should add that I have nothing against the ivy league schools, as my son will be attending one in the fall. His choice, however, was based on his experience during his visit, rather than the school's athletic conference.)</p>
<p>
[Quote]
TheDartmouth.com</a> | Ivy League recruiting practices: Does Dartmouth lower its standards?</p>
<p>Recruited athletes make up 30 to 35 percent of the students admitted early decision to Dartmouth, according to Parish. Also, 18 to 19 percent of each incoming class are recruited athletes.
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<p>10characters</p>