American University has 25.7% acceptance rate.
It’s strange comparing to 45% acceptance rate of University of Minnesota which ranks 69 on US news, a tie with AU.
Do they pull a lot of people from the waitlist?
It’s deceptive. They have an extremely high acceptance rate for ED I & II (around 75-80%). They admit a lot of the class through those early rounds. So RD is extremely selective. You can search for the Common Data Set at AU to find out how many wait listed students are offered spots for the last few years.
I also think a lot of people are highly motivated to apply because of the Washington, DC location.
But the acceptance rate posted online is RD+ED, right? Then that’s still low.
It is curious. Based on 2016-17 common data set, they had an ED acceptance rate of about 85% and an RD acceptance rate of about 26%, resulting in an overall acceptance rate of about 29% or 30%. Unfortunately, we can’t see the stats of the two groups to make comparisons. However, we do know that AU values demonstrated interest–apparently applying ED is one of the best ways to demonstrate interest and increase your odds of acceptance!