Which colleges get the most applications?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>In gathering information recently on 100+ colleges (USNWR Top 75 National Unis and USNWR Top 35 LACs). It was interesting to me to see how they compared in terms of their total number of applications for freshmen enrollment. I thought that others might like to see this comparison. </p>

<p>I divided the schools into groups to better reflect their unique natures and institutional missions. Those three groups are National Universities (state universities), National Universities (private universities), and LACs.</p>

<p>Below is the data for students that entered in Fall, 2008. Keep in mind that many of these colleges saw increases in the just completed admissions round for entrance in Fall, 2009. </p>

<h1>of Applications , National Universities (State Us)</h1>

<p>55437 , UCLA
48263 , UC Berkeley
47365 , UCSD
42414 , UC Irvine
40933 , UC Santa Barbara
40605 , UC Davis
39089 , Penn State
31160 , Indiana U
29952 , Purdue
29814 , U Michigan
29547 , Rutgers
29501 , U Texas
29159 , U Minnesota
28161 , U Maryland
27612 , U Florida
25589 , Michigan State
25478 , U Wisconsin
22491 , U Delaware
21645 , U Illinois
21543 , U North Carolina
21058 , U Conn
20932 , Ohio State
20887 , Texas A&M
20685 , U Pittsburgh
20615 , Virginia Tech
18363 , U Virginia
17877 , U Washington
17207 , U Georgia
15582 , U Iowa
15009 , Miami U (OH)
14504 , Clemson
11636 , W&M
10258 , Georgia Tech</p>

<h1>of Applications , National Universities (Private)</h1>

<p>37245 , NYU
35900 , USC
34125 , Tulane
33930 , Boston University
33073 , Cornell
30845 , Boston Coll
27462 , Harvard
25299 , Stanford
25013 , Northwestern
22935 , U Penn
22817 , Yale
22584 , Columbia
22079 , Syracuse
22035 , Fordham
22005 , Wash U
21774 , U Miami
21370 , Princeton
20633 , Brown
19430 , George Washington
18774 , Duke
18676 , Georgetown
17446 , Emory
16944 , Vanderbilt
16538 , Dartmouth
16011 , Johns Hopkins
15619 , Tufts
13945 , Notre Dame
13527 , Carnegie Mellon
13396 , MIT
12941 , Lehigh
12376 , U Chicago
11633 , U Rochester
11249 , Rensselaer
9050 , Wake Forest
8968 , Rice
8270 , SMU
7724 , Brandeis
7351 , Case Western
6910 , Pepperdine
5706 , Worcester
3957 , Caltech
1768 , Yeshiva</p>

<h1>of Applications , LAC</h1>

<p>10960 , US Naval Acad
10140 , US Military Acad
9416 , Colgate
8250 , Wesleyan
8024 , Bucknell
7970 , U Richmond
7823 , Middlebury
7745 , Amherst
7552 , Williams
7361 , Vassar
7227 , Holy Cross
7006 , Oberlin
6386 , W&L
6357 , Lafayette
6293 , Pomona
6121 , Swarthmore
6033 , Bowdoin
5342 , Colorado College
5136 , Trinity (CT)
5098 , Bates
5073 , Hamilton
5041 , Macalester
4956 , Carleton
4835 , Colby
4509 , Kenyon
4412 , Davidson
4274 , Barnard
4001 , Wellesley
3670 , Claremont McK
3329 , Smith
3311 , Haverford
3217 , Grinnell
3127 , Mt. Holyoke
2190 , Harvey Mudd
2150 , Bryn Mawr
1931 , Scripps</p>

2

<p>What is this data from? As Northeastern University last reported 35,754 applicants (trailing only NYU and USC among National Private Universities) is missing from your list it makes me wonder. </p>

<p>Also, Gettysburg and Dickinson Colleges are missing from the LAC list</p>

3

<p>I am not sure, but I expect the University of Phoenix gets more applicants than any national private on your list.</p>

4

<p>I’m surprised Tulane gets so many applicants.</p>

5

<p>SUNY Binghamton went up to @ 32,000. Obviously this year the cheaper public universities received many more applications than in previous years.</p>

6

<p>Can you recalculate this as applicants per spot in freshman class? That, to me, is more telling. Obviously more people apply to bigger schools.</p>

7

<p>Interesting… can you let me know other information you gather? Went to USNEWS cant even find selectivity rankings as I heard they’ve done.</p>

8

<p>ctyank,
The data all comes from Peterson’s web site. They have information updated thru Fall, 2008 while USNWR is still posting info for Fall, 2007. As for the universe of schools, I have only collected data on the schools ranked 1-75 in the USNWR national university (Northeastern is 96th) rankings and 1-35 in the USNWR LAC rankings. It is perfectly conceivable that schools ranked outside of this universe had more applications. </p>

<p>coolbreeze,
My strong suggestion is that you ignore the USWNR selectivity rankings. Anybody who promotes this as a worthwhile measurement among colleges likely has a very heavy bias to a school that has a high percentage of Top 10% scorers. This is a notoriously unreliable statistic which places 6 of the UCs in the national Top 10 of all universities in the USA. </p>

<p>My suggestion is that you focus on the data that underlies that ranking, ie, the standardized test scores, the Acceptance Rate and, if you like, even the Top 10% scores of students. Weight them as you see fit and it is very, very likely that you will reach a different conclusion from USNWR’s selectivity “ranking.”</p>

9

<p>Here is a chicken-or-egg question: Do schools become large because they attract a lot of applicants or do schools attract a lot of applicants because they are large…or do schools have a cap on their size regardless of number of applicants??? Why doesn’t Swarthmore have 30,000 applicants?</p>

10

<p>hawkette, that is probably why the (yield*SAT/admit_rate) is a better measure. I only have the following numbers for this year. If you have the info I need, I can calculate it. The following is ranked by yield (w/o considering the waitlist).</p>

<p>School , Admitted , Applied , Admit rate(%), EA</p>

<p>Harvard , 2046, 29112 , 7.02 , 0
Yale, 1951 , 26000 , 7.50 , 0
Stanford , 2300 , 30428, 7.56, 0
Princeton , 2150 , 21964 , 9.79, 0
Columbia , 2497, 25428 , 9.82 , ?
MIT , 1597 , 15661 , 10.20 , 0
Brown , 2708, 24988, 10.83 , 551
Dartmouth, 2184 , 18130 , 12.05 , 401
Penn , 3926, 22939, 17.11 , 1156
Duke, 4065 , 23750, 17.12 , 547
Cornell , 6567, 34381 , 19.10 , 1249
Johns Hopkins , 4318 , 16123, 26.78 , 502
Chicago , 3652, 13280 , 26.80 , 1146
Northwestern , 6864 , 25385, 27.04 , 1350</p>

11

<p>

I agree. I calculated a very short list a while back for the class of 2013. It would be interesting to see a more comprehensive list.</p>

<h1>1 Yale- 19.7:1</h1>

<h1>2 Columbia- 18.2:1</h1>

<h1>3 Princeton- 17.7:1</h1>

<p>Stanford- 17.7:1</p>

<h1>5 Harvard- 17.6:1</h1>

<h1>6 Dartmouth- 16.6:1</h1>

<h1>7 WUStL- 16.4:1</h1>

<h1>8 Brown- 16.0:1</h1>

<h1>9 MIT- 14.7:1</h1>

<h1>10 Rice- 14.6:1</h1>

<h1>11 Duke- 13.8:1</h1>

<h1>12 Johns Hopkins- 13.1:1</h1>

<h1>13 Vanderbilt- 12.2:1</h1>

<h1>14 Emory- 12.0:1</h1>

<p>Northwestern- 12.0:1</p>

<h1>16 Cornell- 10.8:1</h1>

<h1>17 Chicago- 10.2:1</h1>

<h1>18 Penn- 9.38:1</h1>

<p>Brown- 16.0:1 (24988, 1558)
Columbia- 18.2:1 (24428, 1341)
Cornell- 10.8:1 (34381, 3183)
Dartmouth- 16.6:1 (18130, 1095)
Harvard- 17.6:1 (29112, 1658)
Penn- 9.38:1 (22939, 2445)
Princeton- 17.7:1 (21964, 1243)
Yale- 19.7:1 (25925, 1318)</p>

<p>Chicago- 10.2:1 (13600, 1328)
Duke- 13.8:1 (23750, 1716)
Emory- 12.0:1 (15611, 1299)
Johns Hopkins- 13.1:1 (16123, 1235)
MIT- 14.7:1 (15661, 1067)
Northwestern- 12.0:1 (25000, 2078)
Rice- 14.6:1 (10818, 742)
Stanford- 17.7:1 (30349, 1711)
Vanderbilt- 12.2:1 (19300, 1585)
WUStL- 16.4:1 (23000, 1400)</p>

12

<p>The yield has to be factored in. If a university gives admissions to 30,000, but only 10 accept the offers and matriculate, this does not indicate that it is selective.</p>

13

<p>

I’m pretty sure the point of the thread is to determine popularity, not selectivity. Yield is irrelevant.</p>

14

<p>The yield doesn’t need to be factored in at all. That’s a different question.</p>

15

<p>In reviewing the application numbers, it really is striking how many more there are for the California publics. Undoubtedly, this is partly due to the ease with which students can apply to multiple UC campuses. Probably most of us would agree that UCLA, UC Berkeley and even UCSD would likely have very high numbers under any scenario. But Irvine? Santa Barbara? Davis?</p>

<p>I was also impressed at how many applications there are to Penn State (wow!) and nine of the other Big Ten universities which exceeded 20,000 applications (State Us of Indiana U, Purdue, U Michigan, U Minnesota, Michigan State, U Wisconsin, U Illinois, Ohio State and private Northwestern also exceeded this level). Really reflects how prominent those schools are in their home states/region. It may also reflect an absence of strong, local private university competition.</p>

<p>In the private school category, there were also surprises, eg, five of the first six universities were NOT members of the Ivy League (NYU, USC, Tulane, BU and BC). Can anybody provide some insight into how this happened for these colleges? I think you also have to be impressed that Northwestern attracted more applications than six of the eight Ivies. </p>

<p>For LACs, most folks probably forget the service academies, but the numbers speak for themselves. These are very popular destinations with many American families and very difficult admits for even the best students. After them, the next four of Colgate, Wesleyan, Bucknell and U Richmond are all surprises to me. I expected to see AWS. I also think that the numbers for the women’s colleges are pretty jarring with only one school (Wellesley) barely reaching 4000 apps (which is less than half of what Colgate received). Does anyone see this trend reversing in general for the women’s colleges or any of the individual colleges?</p>

16

<p>But Irvine? Santa Barbara? Davis?</p>

<p>These 3 are all very well known and respected schools in California. Since getting into the top 3 UCs is quite difficult for many students, the next 3 get a lot of applications too. Also, California has relatively less private schools than other areas. I knew very few people in high school that even considered applying to a private.</p>

17

<p>One might also consider that California has the largest student population in the country.</p>

<p>More students probably equals more college applications (although it should be noted that California has more public universities than any other state as well–since they have a three-tiered college system–UCs, then the Cal States, then the Community colleges.)</p>

18

<p>Here is data based on yields:</p>

<p>Yield , National Universities (State Us)</p>

<p>59% , U Florida
55% , Texas A&M
53% , U North Carolina
52% , U Texas
50% , U Georgia
48% , U Virginia
47% , Ohio State
46% , U Washington
46% , U Michigan
45% , U Illinois
43% , U Wisconsin
42% , Georgia Tech
42% , Michigan State
41% , UC Berkeley
40% , Virginia Tech
37% , UCLA
36% , Penn State
36% , U Maryland
35% , Rutgers
35% , Clemson
35% , W&M
34% , Indiana U
33% , U Minnesota
33% , U Iowa
32% , Purdue
31% , U Conn
31% , U Pittsburgh
30% , Miami U (OH)
27% , U Delaware
24% , UCSD
23% , UC Davis
22% , UC Irvine
19% , UC Santa Barbara</p>

<p>Yield , National Universities (Private)</p>

<p>77% , Harvard
71% , Stanford
68% , Yale
66% , MIT
62% , U Penn
59% , Princeton
56% , Columbia
55% , Brown
55% , Yeshiva
54% , Notre Dame
50% , U Miami
49% , Dartmouth
46% , Cornell
45% , Georgetown
40% , Duke
38% , U Chicago
38% , NYU
37% , Vanderbilt
35% , USC
35% , Wake Forest
34% , Caltech
34% , SMU
34% , George Washington
33% , Lehigh
33% , Rice
33% , Pepperdine
33% , Tufts
32% , Northwestern
30% , Johns Hopkins
30% , Brandeis
30% , Wash U
29% , Carnegie Mellon
28% , Emory
27% , Syracuse
27% , Rensselaer
27% , Boston Coll
26% , U Rochester
24% , Worcester
21% , Boston University
19% , Fordham
19% , Case Western
17% , Tulane</p>

<p>Yield , LAC</p>

<p>98% , US Naval Acad
79% , US Military Acad
47% , Barnard
44% , Middlebury
44% , Bowdoin
42% , Davidson
42% , W&L
42% , Williams
41% , Wellesley
40% , Claremont McK
40% , Bucknell
40% , Colorado College
39% , Pomona
39% , Swarthmore
38% , Amherst
38% , Smith
37% , Haverford
36% , Carleton
35% , Bates
35% , Bryn Mawr
35% , Vassar
34% , Grinnell
33% , Oberlin
33% , Colgate
32% , Hamilton
32% , Colby
32% , Kenyon
32% , Wesleyan
31% , Mt. Holyoke
30% , Holy Cross
30% , Scripps
29% , U Richmond
28% , Trinity (CT)
26% , Harvey Mudd
25% , Lafayette
23% , Macalester</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/730073-how-do-yields-compare-top-colleges.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/730073-how-do-yields-compare-top-colleges.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

19

<p>If you factor in the yield you get the acceptance rate. The inverse of it anyway.</p>

<p>Apps/Enrollment (list on page 1) * Enrollment/Accepted (yield rate) = Apps/Accepted, the inverse of the acceptance rate.</p>

20

<p>Barnard had more applicants than Wellesley. I don’t find the numbers for the women’s colleges all that surprising, since their applicant pool is effectively cut in half and most girls I know would prefer a co-ed environment.</p>