<p>It seems strange that Stanford is the only elite school that has refused, thus far, to report how many applications it received for the Class of 2009.</p>
<p>The EA story vaguely predicted about 15,000 RD apps, which would be at about the same plateau where Stanfor RD apps have been for about 4 years .... but the official number has still not been reported for whatever reason.</p>
<p>At the EA Bay Area reception in late January, the admissions director said that total applications were over 20,000 this year.</p>
<p>that's interesting smileymom, i wonder why EA would remain constant though. perhaps more from the east coast are adding stanford to the HYP RD list</p>
<p>yup...they said the same at the Los Angeles reception..they were very happy to finally break 20,000 apps</p>
<p>It will certainly be interesting to see if Stanford breaks the 20,000 barrier for applications this year, as rumored. Even if it does, the result will primarily be due to the easing of early application rules last year. </p>
<p>It appears that growth in the early application pool in recent times - EA and ED - has largely been at the expense of Stanford's own "regular" pool, which has declined slightly in the last five years - or at best, held steady.</p>
<p>2009: 4,330 EA ------ est. 15,770 RD -- est 20,100 total apps
2008: 4,175 EA est -- est. 14,997 RD ------ 19,172 total apps
2007: 2391 ED ------------ 16,208 RD ------ 18,599 total apps
2006: 2,181 ED ----------- 16,871 RD ------ 19,052 total apps
2005: 2,087 ED ----------- 16,276 RD ------ 18,362 total apps</p>
<p>[information taken from Stanford's CDS forms]</p>
<p>byerly, it is not rumored. When I went to the Los Angeles admit reception, we were told by the director of admissions herself (anne marie porras) that Stanford finally broke 20,000 apps.</p>
<p>I treat 2nd hand oral reports as "rumors". Nothing has yet been officially announced or posted. And of course there is no precise number available.</p>
<p>For whatever reason, they have apparently decided to withhold the actual number of applications until they announce the number of admits at the end of the month.</p>
<p>Are incomplete and withdrawn applications counted among these figures?</p>
<p>They shouldn't be, under the agreed-upon standards for filling out the Common Data Set and reporting to USNews. </p>
<p>A number of colleges do this however, in order to report as large a number of apps as possible. Yale is one school that does this.</p>
<p>Byerly...may I safely assume that you're a Harvard student?</p>
<p>Yale reports that it received 3,931 EA apps for the class of 2009.</p>
<p>But 36 of these apps were incomplete, and 3 were withdrawn. So in fact, there were actually 3,892 completed applications.</p>
<hr>
<p>And for the Class of 2008, Yale reported that it received 4,050 EA apps.</p>
<p>But 79 of these apps were incomplete, and 6 were withdrawn, so that there were actually 3.965 completed applications.</p>
<p>NYCFan, you're a treasure.</p>
<p>yeah, Stanford had about 4,000 EA apps.....I was one of the rejects =[...yeah it was seriously a massacre for my school...our 1600 SAT guy got deferred....ahh burn Stanford!! LoL JK!! good luck to everyoen who applied RD!!!! =]</p>
<p>Yeah, it seems Stanford has embraced the poker admissions approach.</p>
<p>I'm not sure if that's good or bad for me.</p>
<p>Wow, Byerly, maybe they don't release the numbers to keep people like you from obsessing over them. I don't really see the good in a college releasing that info so early... if there were more apps than last year, all teh applicants freak out, if there were fewer, the admissions officers freak out. The applicant's job is to apply, the admission officer's is to review and decide who to admit. That should be it. Any other speculation is just pointless. So chill out and quit with the multiple threads about this, it's not a big deal.</p>
<p>That's an odd attitude. it seems to me. From the point of view of the "customers" (ie, the student applicants), I'd argue that more information is better than less, and that a transparent admissions process is better than an opaque one.</p>
<p>Of course, if it was not for the spotlight shone on the process by USNews, we would have far less information to go on, and far less understanding of the way admissions really works, than we do currently.</p>
<p>I fail to see why Stanford (or any other school) is more "noble" because it refuses to release important information in a timely manner.</p>
<p>as a private institution it is entitled to conduct its business as it sees fit. you can exercise consumer sovereignty as you see fit.</p>
<p>It's just a sensible attitude to have. No point in causing a flurry of obsessive and completely pointless speculation and worry among applicants and, I suppose, folks like you by releasing numbers before decisions. It's not like the info never gets out, so your whole opaque/transparent argument doesn't work.</p>
<p>I seriously doubt if the information is withheld due to concern for the tender sensibilities of vulnerable applicants. </p>
<p>It is far more likely that the purpose is to gain a competitive advantage of some kind.</p>
<p>And what exactly would be the competitive advantage?</p>
<p>byerly you are very cynical about every school except for your alma mater</p>