The number of students applying early to college has increased over the last few years at an even faster rate than the total number of applications submitted. Early applications rose 12% this year over last year for a large sample of colleges. Part of the reason for this increase is the broader recognition that the admit rate is generally 15% better for early applicants than for regular decision applicants. However, parents and students should not be misled that applying early automatically enhances the students' chances for admissions. There are 3 main reasons for better admit rates for early applicants:
(1) Athletics - Most coaches push to get athletes signed to commitments early in the Fall. In addition, legacy, development, and other special applicants such as Questbridge and those with exceptional musical talent are encouraged to apply early. These flagged applicants have much higher admit rates and they push the early admit rates higher than regular admit rates. Yale, for example, claims that after subtracting for recruits their admit rates for early and regular were statistically the same.
(2) Better students - Many colleges claim the early applicant pool is generally better than the regular applicant pool.
(3) Commitment - Some schools admit that they prefer students who demonstrate a strong interest in their programs by indicating them as their first choice and applying early.
In general, applying early to top 10 schools does not help while applying early to lesser known college could help given their stated preference for committed students.
A number of colleges have now announced their early admissions results for Fall 2011. The admit rates continue to show the same strong bias for early applicants. The percentage of freshmen class now filled through early decision is revealing, scary, and somewhat misleading. For certain colleges the percentage of the Class of 2015 already filled is frighteningly high – 49% for UPenn – meaning that they have already filled halve their incoming class. This also means that the yield for some selective colleges like UPenn from regular admissions is surprisingly poor since UPenn admitted about 2629 regular decision last year and only 46% of those chose to attend UPenn. I suspect this is a major reason why so many colleges employ ED to harvest students and improve their overall yield on various college ranking lists.
Going early may be become the new standard for college admissions as even some of the selective colleges like UVA reinstate early action as part of their admissions process. As early applications increase and students and colleges lock in their decisions early, this may slow the rise in total applications and restore some sanity to the escalating war to recruit college students.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Subcatergory Admit Rates for Colleges
There are a few little known but very significant differences in admissions stats at highly selective colleges.
It has been known for a long time that the admit rate at Columbia College and Columbia Engineering are very different. The admit rate for the college is 9% - very tough. The admit rate for engineering is less selective at 14% in 2009. As recently as 2006, this disparity was huge: 10% for the College and 24% for the Engineering school. So while Columbia College may be a reach school for certain students, Engineering would be a safety school for the same student. Historically Engineering students were known to be weaker than college students when they register for the same classes. The same disparity exist at Barnard and Columbia. The admit rate for Barnard is 28%. For female applicants, Barnard is a great backdoor to a great education because you get a Columbia education with a Columbia degree.
For other schools that do not publish their sub admit rates explicitly, it is still fairly well known that Harvard and Princeton Engineering schools are easier to get into than their liberal arts counterparts especially for girls. This is because their undergraduate engineering schools are not particularly strong. However, once your kid is admitted, they get to take the same classes from the same great professors as other students and at some of these schools it is quite easy to switch majors once in. Moreover, schools such as Harvard and Princeton give much more aid than other typical good schools. So while Harvard Engineering may not rate as highly as Georgia Institute of Tech, I would recommend applying to Harvard.
Another school with very disparate admit rates is Brown. The admit rate for girls is 9.8% in 2009 while it was 13.2% for boys. The reason is that many girls consider Brown the best Ivy for liberal arts and they all are drawn there.
These sub admit rates are much more relevant to selecting good reach/match/safety schools for your child because the aggregate admit rates may not give an accurate picture of the probability of admissions for your kid at any given school.
It has been known for a long time that the admit rate at Columbia College and Columbia Engineering are very different. The admit rate for the college is 9% - very tough. The admit rate for engineering is less selective at 14% in 2009. As recently as 2006, this disparity was huge: 10% for the College and 24% for the Engineering school. So while Columbia College may be a reach school for certain students, Engineering would be a safety school for the same student. Historically Engineering students were known to be weaker than college students when they register for the same classes. The same disparity exist at Barnard and Columbia. The admit rate for Barnard is 28%. For female applicants, Barnard is a great backdoor to a great education because you get a Columbia education with a Columbia degree.
For other schools that do not publish their sub admit rates explicitly, it is still fairly well known that Harvard and Princeton Engineering schools are easier to get into than their liberal arts counterparts especially for girls. This is because their undergraduate engineering schools are not particularly strong. However, once your kid is admitted, they get to take the same classes from the same great professors as other students and at some of these schools it is quite easy to switch majors once in. Moreover, schools such as Harvard and Princeton give much more aid than other typical good schools. So while Harvard Engineering may not rate as highly as Georgia Institute of Tech, I would recommend applying to Harvard.
Another school with very disparate admit rates is Brown. The admit rate for girls is 9.8% in 2009 while it was 13.2% for boys. The reason is that many girls consider Brown the best Ivy for liberal arts and they all are drawn there.
These sub admit rates are much more relevant to selecting good reach/match/safety schools for your child because the aggregate admit rates may not give an accurate picture of the probability of admissions for your kid at any given school.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
HYPSM cross admits
Stanford has just published some interesting cross admit data for their top 4 competitors. Of the 2014 admits who did not enroll at Stanford, 32 percent chose Harvard; 16 percent, Yale; 14 percent, Princeton; and 13 percent, M.I.T. UC-Berkeley was not among the top 20 schools those students chose. The 8 yr historical data shows Stanford holding their own and doing better against all their major competitors.
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