I realize that acceptance rate is not solely a good indicator of the quality of a school, but out of sheer curiosity, why is the acceptance rate at Williams relatively higher than similar schools? According to US News, of the so-called top ten LACs, Williams has the highest acceptance rate at 19.3% - anyone have a good explanation for this?
Amherst & Swarthmore: “better” (less rural) locations
Bowdoin & Middlebury: SAT optional/flexible
Pomona & Claremont McKenna: better location and weather
Williams has the 2nd largest student body among this group (behind only Middlebury), which also increases the acceptance rate.
I’d say this is because Williams college is elite not only in the sense of their quality of education, but also in the amount of people who know about it. Williams College is lesser known amongst the general public, while Harvard is not. Because of this, Harvard’s fame allows many people who are unqualified for Harvard try to get it. So although Harvard has an acceptance rate a fourth of Williams, the people applying to Williams as a whole are of an upper caliber. In essence, the people who apply to Williams are probably more prepared and better rounded than those that apply to other colleges with much smaller acceptance rates. Does that make sense?
That makes some sense when compared to Harvard.
But it doesn’t explain why Williams’ acceptance rate is roughly 40% higher than Amherst and 80% higher than Pomona.
It is a curious thing.
Another school similar is Emory - highly ranked but a relatively high acceptance. When compared to other us news top 25, its 26% rate is high. Can’t figure that one out either.
As @goldenbear2020 rightly notes, when it comes to small schools without widespread name recognition, the size of the student body has a much greater influence on acceptance rate. In general, the universe of students who apply to these schools overlaps. Amherst and Williams (and Middlebury and Bowdoin) share many cross applicants, but compared to Amherst, Williams has 300 more spots to fill (and Middlebury has 700 more). When you look at average yield rates for elite LACs, it’s no surprise that they have to accept more students to matriculate a full class.
Pomona (and Claremont McKenna) are a unique case. As the only LACs in California or on the west coast that are viewed as “elite,” they get thousands of applications from Californians who are not interested in leaving California and are not applying to any other LACs. They get more applications than Williams for much the same reason that UCLA got 115 thousand applicants last year, more than any other university in the country. I’m a California parent and I see it in the decisions of the kids I know.
I also agree about why Bowdoin and the other SAT optional schools get more applications. If you have bad SATs, why not take a flyer on a school like that anyway.
When you are comparing Williams to Amherst and other east coast LACs that do admissions things roughly the same way, I think that the isolated location plays a big part, as it does for Hamilton and Colgate as well.
I say this as someone with the utmost respect for Williams, with a daughter who considered Williams but chose Amherst in good part for this very reason.
Amherst exists largely because of a disagreement about Williams’ remote location 
Williams: 6883 applied, 1197 accepted (17.4%), 549 enrolled (46% yield), 12.5 apps/seat
Amherst: 8566 applied, 1176 accepted (13.7%), 470 enrolled (40% yield), 18.2 apps/seat
Pomona: 8091 applied, 790 accepted (9.8%), 405 enrolled (51% yield), 20.0 apps/seat
Comparing the Class of 2019 numbers, Amherst and Pomona received 24% and 18% more applications than Williams, but have 14% and 26% smaller student bodies, respectively. However, Williams does have a higher yield than Amherst, so they have roughly the same number of acceptances even though Williams has a 17% larger student body.
I checked out the Common Data Sets for a small sample of schools. For the Classes of 2016, 2017, and 2018, the average incoming class size for Williams was 545 students. For Amherst, it was 466 students. For Pomona, it was 415 students. For Swarthmore, it was 391 students. So the first observation is that Williams does, indeed, need to accept more students in order to fill more spots. Second, the total number of applicants per year to Williams in each of the three years was less than the number of applicants to Amherst and the number of applicants to Pomona - so when you put these two facts together, Williams’ acceptance rate will be higher.
The 19.3% acceptance rate for Williams appears to be a bit of an outlier - for the Class of 2018, there were only 6,316 total applicants (which is 537 fewer students than the number of applicants for the Class of 2017 and 753 fewer students than the number of applicants for the Class of 2016…I also did some research and discovered that it is 567 less than the total number of applicants for the most recent Class of 2019). This drop in total applications is a cause for an increase in the acceptance rate. In the other years, Williams’ acceptance rate tends to be closer to 17%.
@Student901 wrote “But it doesn’t explain why Williams’ acceptance rate is roughly 40% higher than Amherst and 80% higher than Pomona” in a previous post. I am not sure where the 80% came from. If the comparison is Williams’ 19.3% rate and Pomona’s 12.2% rate - that represents a 58% increase. That number, on the surface, may feel high, but again for the Class of 2018, Pomona had 1,141 more applicants than Williams with fewer beds to fill (they accepted 278 fewer students).
Statistics themselves can often be misleading without further analysis - I just highlighted a couple of quick observations, but much more could be said. These schools, along with many other LAC’s, are all excellent schools. I am glad the OP recognizes that “that acceptance rate is not solely a good indicator of the quality of a school.”
First let’s look a few numbers. One metric of measuring the quality of accepted students is ACT or SAT score, However this is by no means a definitive metric because institutions give different weight to test scores.
For example the ACT composite of THOSE ATTENDING some top LACs
Williams: 30-34
Amherst: 30-34
Pomona: 31-34
Swarthmore: 31-34
Bowdoin: 30-33
Not much of a disparity here: the difference between a 30 and a 31 on the ACT can be a few questions more wrong or right. The quality (simply by the metric of testing) is not significantly different between the schools.
But I feel that the answer goes beyond just numbers.
Amherst, Pomona and Bowdoin have larger number of applicants and a lower acceptance rate.
The reason that Williams has a larger acceptance rate is more nuanced. The group of students applying to these schools are likely also applying to top schools elsewhere (HYPSM and other top LACs)
HYPSM and the cream of the crop LACs are often either:
A) within range of a mid-sized to major city (Swarthmore to Philly, Pomona to L.A., etc etc etc)
B) in a city or college town (Amherst in Amherst, Harvard to Cambridge.)
William’s remote location means that you are committing to four years in a small town with the all social life rotating around the college. I’m all for it - I applied early decision to Williams but for others this can be a turn off.
Swat is similar to Williams in that it is self-selecting but it’s one of the smallest LACs at 1500. Swarthmore students are intensely academic - and the classes there are notoriously hard. Pomona also gets more applicants because California students make up a relatively large percentage of its class.
Those applying to Williams are not the same group that applies to Harvard because of its name or prestige. Make no mistake, I’m not saying that Williams doesn’t carry name weight but I often get the question, where is Williams? Those applying to Williams and other top LACs are OFTEN but not always more educated regarding the colleges they are applying too.
THEREFORE: People don’t often apply on a whim to Williams. If Williams was based near a major city, hypothetically (though this would completely change its identity) application numbers would rise significantly.
tl&dr William’s application pool is more self-selecting - simply as a result of William’s location and feel. Smaller application pool means a larger acceptance rate, though these students are of a similar level to other top LACs.
You thing 19.3% is a “high” acceptance rate?
Would you jump out of an airplane with a parachute that has only a 19.3% chance of opening?
The OP was careful to say “relatively” high.
As in, it’s 50% higher than Pomona, 25% higher than Amherst, etc.
As far as your analogy, I’d rather have the parachute that has a 50% higher chance of opening!
Anyways, some good answers above. I agree it is not at all a reflection of the quality of the school or the students there.
One interesting statistic would be to see the data for the average applicant. To get an idea of the strength of the applicant pool. I saw a stat for Amherst that said the average applicant in the pool had a 31 ACT. That seems very high. I’m sure Williams is similar.
I think we’re neglecting to mention that an school’s acceptance rate is often driven by the school itself. During the 2018 application cycle, Swarthmore had an 17% acceptance rate. One year later, during the 2019 application cycle, Swarthmore had an 12% acceptance rate. Swarthmore’s relative acceptance rate decreased by about 30%, and its absolute acceptance rate dipped by 5%.
What happened in a year that drove that change? Did Swarthmore hire a bunch of Nobel Laureates to its faculty? Did the school suddenly move into a more attractive area? Did FinAid change significantly?
Of course, Swat didn’t change a lick. What did change, most likely, was the school’s marketing. I would bet you that they probably sent out more mailers, and more emails during that application cycle to try and draw more applications. And I bet if any top LAC really committed itself to soliciting more applications, they would be able to see an corresponding drop in their admissions rate.
I think, at least in part, Williams’ acceptance rate is higher relative to its USNR ranking because the school itself isn’t interested in spending money to solicit more applications. Why go to the trouble? I don’t think you can argue that more applications would improve the quality of the school’s student body. And it’s not like a lower acceptance rate would make the school anymore prestigious; it’s already at the top of the USNR LAC ranking.
@DressingIron regarding Swarthmore:
Regarding Pomona, Pomona was ranked #2 by Forbes in 2013 which put Pomona on the radar for a lot of students who might not have otherwise considered it. Pomona experienced an 8% increase in applications for the Class of 2018 after that, and an unprecedented jump in yield from 40% to 47.7% resulting in the Class of 2018 being overenrolled (450 instead of the target of 400). http://tsl.news/news/4600/ The admissions office was more conservative in making offers for the Class of 2019 to avoid another overenrolled class.
Forbes ranked Pomona #1 in 2015 so that will probably affect the number of applications for the Class of 2020. I’m not here to defend the Forbes rankings but just to say that more students both inside and outside of California have heard of Pomona now (and won’t confuse it with Cal Poly Pomona). My D looked at Williams but was hesitant about its remote location, plus being from the Southwest meant that Pomona was closer to home and more culturally familiar.
I think most of the reasons have been touched upon, but to sum up my thoughts:
(1) Williams requires the SAT/ACT, while some peers do not.
(2) Williams markets itself perhaps less aggressively than some of its peers, leading to a more self-selecting applicant pool. Williams typically has the highest or among the very highest yields of liberal arts schools, indicating that the students who apply are seriously considering Williams, rather than applying on a whim when they are more focused on alternative choices.
(3) Williams requires an essay specifically tailored to the school, which weeds out a number of un-serious applicants who, again, otherwise might apply on a whim via the common application.
(4) Rural location dissuades some applicants who might apply to Pomona, Amherst, Swarthmore.
(5) Largest student body among its closest peers, other than Middlebury.
(6) Has not aggressively marketed itself to international applicants the way some peers have, so does not receive hordes of applications from, in particular, East Asia.
Various of these traits are shared by some of Williams’ peers, but when you combine them all together, you end up with a slightly higher acceptance rate. Ultimately what matters is the caliber of student body admitted, and there, the top four (W/A/S/P) are virtually indistinguishable (some have higher SATs, some have higher class ranks, some have more diversity, some have better athletes/artists, but ultimately, we are talking about similar overall strength of student body) from one another, and as a group are stronger than any other LAC. So long as Williams’ student body is not suffering in comparison to A/S/P, I don’t think the school is going to worry about acceptance rates. If it was, it could just give, for example, a whole slew more of fee waivers, or more aggressively distribute marketing materials. But that would result in a lot of applicants who are less likely to ultimately choose Williams, so in the end, what’s the difference?
Regarding Forbes, Williams has twice been ranked number one overall by Forbes without any apparent impact on its applications pool. I don’t think that generally affects anything. Williams has also been ranked number one for 13 straight years by US News, again, without any demonstrable impact on the applicant pool. I believe Pomona has boomed in recent years because it is the only truly elite LAC (Harvey Mudd is engineering-focused, Reed is idiosyncratic, and CMC is just not as well-regarded as Pomona, although all could be considered elite in their own ways) west of Iowa/Minnesota and clearly the best in California, which has an enormous applicant pool of students who increasingly are being shut out of Stanford and Berkeley.
“of the . . . top ten [USNWR] LACs, Williams has the highest acceptance rate”
What about Wellesley, Carleton, Davidson?
With respect to the greater question, Williams’ acceptance rate is low by an absolute standard. Comparisons to other colleges, though potentially interesting, lose their substantive relevance when all colleges in the group have low absolute acceptance rates, as is the case. If standardized scores and other metrics were to be included under a more general discussion of selectivity, that would be more meaningful.
This 100%. They could drive their admission rate down to 6% if they wanted to. Simply send out more solicitations that induce less qualified students to apply under a false impression. The same goes for average SATs. Anyone of these schools could literally have an average SAT admission rate of over 2300. Probably the most significant indicator of academic excellence is actual rigor. On that front Williams is notoriously difficult compared to many of its Ivy counterparts and LC peers. I think many are turned off by the fact that students at Williams are expected to work hard and the grading is not easy. Of course, the benefit coming out on the other side is anybody that matters knows a Williams grad will be rock solid. This is reflected in their success with admissions to the top medical and law schools, graduate schools and on Wall Street. I also would argue that Williams and Amherst (to a slightly lesser extent) are competing head to head for applicants applying to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. This means they have to factor in that competition and accept more rather than less because the brand name favors the Ivies. All things being equal (literally), kids and parents will choose the shiny badge of “success” over Williams or Amherst in most instances. However, in terms of practical value of the degree (yes, admission is only the beginning), other than Harvard, Yale or Princeton which hold sway in the real world, Williams and Amherst arguably carry their graduates as far or farther than Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell or Penn. For example, in reality, other than HYP, Williams is the only other institution that is actively recruited and carries real weight among Wall Street investment banking firms. I believe this is primarily because of its world renowned mathematics department and ability to turn out brilliant “quants”. They don’t give much respect to grads out of Penn, Cornell, Dartmouth or Brown, right or wrong. This is, of course, is all generalization. Each student will define his/her destiny by whether they take full advantage of the amazing opportunities available at all of these institutions. In my career, I have encountered a fair share of dummies represented by every one of these institutions and I shake my head wondering how they got there to start. I also have encountered amazingly brilliant, motivated individuals from “lesser” institutions. It all turns on the individual when all is said and done.
Wharton grads might beg to differ on that.
@OHMomof2 Not to detract from Williams, but it is farcical to make such statements. Where is your evidence? How did you come by this analysis? To claim that Williams is higher rated than Penn/Wharton is frankly amusing.