<p>I'm going to apply to this school and I'm just wondering if the US rankings rise would have any impact on its admissions. Would it be harder to get in?</p>
<p>Maybe a little bit.</p>
<p>That won’t make as much of a difference as the move to the common app, which will increase applications by a lot.</p>
<p>What about ED? Will it significantly affect that pool?</p>
<p><em>sigh</em>
this has always been my top choice</p>
<p>to prospective applicants:</p>
<p>any potential rise is certainly speculative because it in the end requires you guys to apply for there to be a rise. </p>
<p>but i will offer a bit of analysis to maybe make you sleep easier.</p>
<p>a) just because more people apply doesn’t mean it is actually more difficult for you to be admitted. for two sets of students: it may create a negligible effect 1) those that are already clearly admissible, 2) those that would not have been admitted even in this year’s pool. sure there may be folks that are borderline that may feel a squeeze with more solid applicants, but that is less likely because of…</p>
<p>b) for the most part commonapp increases have come at the bottom to middle layers of the applicant pool, with sprinkles of people at the top. because in general folks at the top are more aware of a school like columbia, and apply despite the commonapp barrier. </p>
<p>c) students that otherwise wouldn’t have applied to columbia may indeed be bad applicants - unfamiliar with columbia’s particularities that you may indeed have that make them less than ideal candidates. so folks that are here on the columbia board, know they’ve wanted to apply ed at this point, they still stand a better chance of being admitted because they might be better fits for columbia.</p>
<p>so only if for some reason columbia ends up scrapping more of the best students to apply, i think a lot of folks fearing they wont be admitted (any worse than before) is a bit premature. it is also entirely possible that everyone gets scared off and fewer people apply. so apply if you want to, apply early if you heart columbia. and don’t predict the future because you just might miss out on an opportunity.</p>
<p>Thanks for your analysis.</p>
<p>A ton of students decide between Penn ED and Columbia ED. Now that Columbia has surpassed Penn in the rankings, Columbia ED will probably steal some away from the Penn ED pool. Sadly some students and parents are that obsessed with rankings.</p>
<p><em>sob</em> Thanks admissionsgeek <em>sob</em>
I. HEART. COLUMBIA.</p>
<p>yes it will</p>
<p>I personally liked columbia a lot more.</p>
<p>“A ton of students decide between Penn ED and Columbia ED. Now that Columbia has surpassed Penn in the rankings, Columbia ED will probably steal some away from the Penn ED pool. Sadly some students and parents are that obsessed with rankings.”</p>
<p>I honestly can’t imagine anyone applying ED to Penn over Columbia solely because it had a better USNWR ranking. Sure, you might end up being ranked higher by a magazine that lots of high school seniors care about, but you’ll also be a student at Penn…</p>
<p>^Yes, but for borderline or mainly disinterested students, a ranking is one way to decide things. So they’re not applying solely because of a ranking.</p>
<p>Then again overanalyzing CC students may figure Columbia’s ED apps will go up and decide to play it “safe” with Penn ED. </p>
<p>In short, Columbia’s ED apps will increase, but the talent will all defer to Penn ED. So Columbia’s ED pool will be considerably weaker than Penn’s ;).</p>
<p>Common App will not be a “very” influential factor in application increases because it’s not like common app has just one essay, there is the supplement which often includes one or more essays which can deter prospectives who just want to apply because of the ‘perceived’ apparent ease of common app. Nevertheless, this year, as always, acceptance rate will fall but not by as much as the preceding hysteria might indicate.</p>
<p>Probably. You’d be surprised how many people can be easily swayed by rankings. </p>
<p>Even if this only attracts unqualified students who had no chance to begin with, or Ivy trophy hunters, the fact is that the applicant pool will increase and it might be harder for you to stand out when adcoms are feverishly trying to review applications in four months. </p>
<p>Plus, if Columbia defends its top 5 ranking for a few years, it might, in the eyes of younger students yet to begin the college process, have an impression of being more prestigious, affecting the applicant numbers later on as well.</p>
<p>I would say that ED will be more affected than RD. But both changes will be negligible. </p>
<p>It is safe to assume that all competitive applicants would have applied regardless of the small shift in rankings. More people will apply, and the percentage will go down, but that change will not genuinely affect the difficultly of getting in to Columbia.</p>