<p>Let me preface this by saying that Reed is one of my top schools of choice. Thereafter, question is in the title, other elite LACs are, I suppose, Swat, Mudd, Oberlin, Pomona, Williams, Bowdoin etc.</p>
<p>It has fewer applicants than most other schools. One factor is that they’re ranked lowly on USNWR because they don’t send information to them. I’m just an applicant so I’m not that qualified to talk about Reed objectively, but despite it not being as well known outside of academia, it has a great student body that is very self-selecting, and is academically comparable to those schools while having a higher acceptance rate. I can’t speak for the admissions office of Reed accurately, but I’m not sure if they really care about having a low acceptance rate.</p>
<p>That’s exactly right. They won’t play ball. It’s the last of a breed for really intellectual students who are not the risk averse grade grubbers going for the ivies and then the investment banks. If I recall, they don’t even tell you your grades unless you ask. They send a lot of graduates of to PhD programs. </p>
<p>FWIW, Reed is starting to play ball: the administration is intentionally trying to decrease the admission rate. However, there is much more to selectivity than just acceptance rates. Compare Reed’s average SAT scores to say, Vassar, or Haverford.</p>
<p>To reinforce the point by @International95, another thing the administration has been doing is working hard on reducing the attrition rate, i.e., increasing the 6-year graduation rate. This is partly a matter of greater selectivity on admissions but also a matter of more financial aid to students. (I do my little part as an alumnus, giving Reed >$1K per year for the last 20 years or so.) </p>
<p>i had a talk with the Reed admin at the “Colleges that Change Lives” fair that came through our town…they pride themselves on being able to accept a wide % of qualified applicants and they just don’t put the effort into the rankings that many other schools do. I find it refreshing. </p>
<p>@SouthernHope I do too! Part of the reason I like Reed so much. I just don’t care what people really think of me. Kind of the Reed attitude it seems.</p>
<p>They recognize, also, that their applicants display aptitude in ways other than their GPAs, class ranks, and standardized test scores. Reed doesn’t play the numbers game the way other schools do. That paired with fewer applicants, and a stronger pool of applicants in general, and you get a higher acceptance rate.</p>
<p>This is a super interesting article with some explanatory statistics: <a href=“College Rankings - Admission - Reed College”>http://reed.edu/apply/college-rankings.html</a></p>
<p>One answer is purely mathematical. Acceptance rate and admissions yield are inversely related. Reed’s yield is 23%, which contrasts with the 35%-percent-and-up yields at otherwise comparable schools. So the question may not be, why is Reed’s acceptance rate higher than at other elite LACs, but, why is Reed’s yield lower?</p>
Because Reed is a lesser known college compared to other LACs with similar academic caliber. Prestige does matter when people are choosing schools.
Self-selection bias. Only students who are ready and willing to devote themselves to a life of the mind choose to apply.
I graduated from Reed, didn’t know my grades until years later when I needed that info to apply to grad school. It was liberating to go through college without any focus on grades, but rather on deepening my own learning.
I don’t think Reed is lesser known at all. I do think it is self-selecting.
Trends beyond a discussion of any single college are factor in selectivity. As illustration, Reed at one time (circa 1980) had higher SAT scores (average of CR+M combined) than the University of Chicago. Chicago, of course, has since gone stratospheric. Under different societal imperatives, could the dynamic have been the reverse? I believe so, yes.
I would not allow your first sentence in a common app essay if I were asked to review it. 
But, just for the heck of it, what “different social imperatives” do you think would have made a difference?
“Trends beyond a discussion of any single college are [a] factor in selectivity.” (14)
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Other than the missing “a” in the first version, the sentence says exactly what I want it to, which is that, “Trends beyond a discussion of any single college are a factor in selectivity,” so I won’t rewrite it. Whether it’s easily understood or not, I have no idea. I’d imagine that would depend on who’s reading it.
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Naturally, irrespective of whether it was referenced with “social” or the original “societal,” I won’t answer a question asked “just for the heck of it.”
I have a more mundane hypothesis. It is not clustered around other LAC geographically. So, it probably gets left out…
After full consideration of online criticism (#15), I will provide an alternate opening for post 14: “It was a dark and stormy night . . .”
@lostaccount, we grouped it with a visit to Whitman. But agree that it is out of the way. No merit aid offered also may hurt Reed. Expecting top stats students to pay full price probably causes some students/parents to shy away. To be honest, as a parent I was reluctant to have my D2 (very high stats, 800/780/800) apply, partly because the SAT ranges are good but not amazing for Reed students. And she likely would have been full pay. That did not sit well with me – other LACs in the same test score range were giving her an average $15K/year discount. It wasn’t the only reason she didn’t apply, but it was a factor.