How international applicants impact admission rates

[Anonymous]

Many schools have now published their 2023-24 CDS data. New for this year is a field in the First Time, First Year Admission section for institutions to publish their applied/admitted/enrolled data broken down by in-state, out of state, and international applicants. Here is the data for some selective colleges and universities. Format is as follows:

Institution name__%Int'l appl___%Int'l accept___%Int'l yield___%Domes accept___%Domes yield

Amherst_________39_________3____________45___________14_____________38
Bowdoin_________36_________2____________67___________11_____________56
Claremont McKenna25_________7____________46___________12_____________50
Haverford________41_________5____________46___________19_____________45

Brown___________21_________4____________65___________6______________63
Cornell__________25_________3____________75___________10_____________65
Vanderbilt________16_________4____________55___________7______________57
UC Berkeley______25_________3____________55___________13_____________45

So, things aren't quite as bad as they may seem for domestic applicants when you look at the published very low overall acceptance rates. But this is because the international applicants have virtually no chance of getting in. Also, selective LACs are getting flooded with international applications. Maybe they are doing a lot of marketing overseas? I think all the schools on the list except for Haverford and Berkeley meet demonstrated need for international students.

If you don't see your favorite school on this list, it may be because they left this information blank on their CDS. Yes, looking at you Williams, Pomona, Swarthmore, Dartmouth, UCLA, Michigan. Some may not have published yet, and I didn't include women's colleges or tech schools. Kudos to the schools above that were forthright enough to publish their data.

[Anonymous]

These are often kids of most wealthy or influential people of their countries and its useful for colleges, students and USA to make connections with them.

[Anonymous]

We don't want them going to UK, Australia or Canada.

[Anonymous]

My kid would have looked at Haverford if I'd known his odds were 19%. There's only so much time to visit reach schools with a 13% overall admittance rate.

19% would have been more attractive.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for posting this! It's really helpful.

Just so I'm clear, the first column is the % of total applicants of the college comprised by international students? If so, those numbers are shockingly high...

[Anonymous]

(OP) Yes, the first column is the % of total applicants that are international, and yes, it is shockingly high, especially for small US SLACs that are not that well known (except to DCUM readers).

[Anonymous]

This is helpful, but state schools probably don't tell you much. They usually have a mandate to accept most of their class in-state, so that will be 100% domestic.

Wonder if they show it 3-ways, in-state, OOS and international?

[Anonymous]

Thanks OP. Great list and explanation.

[Anonymous]

I guess the main takeaway (that gives you a little bit of hope) is that the acceptance rates at all these schools for US students is higher than the overall acceptance rate.

Haverford at 19% for US applicants feels more attainable than the 13% overall acceptance (which is the weighted average of what OP posted).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These are often kids of most wealthy or influential people of their countries and its useful for colleges, students and USA to make connections with them.

Yes, also interesting to see would be the numbers of internationals on fin aid.

[Anonymous]

From some of the popular universities that published the International data it looked like Internationals typically accounted for 20 to 25% of the applicants but about 8-10% of the enrolled base. So indeed, it does look better for domestic applicants who should check out the CDS for the Unis interested in.

[Anonymous]

Thank you OP. Appreciate providing the resource and the importance of looking at domestic admission rates.

[Anonymous]

Are people able to follow op’s numbers, or is the formatting bad just on my screen. Can you repost just the acceptance rates for international and domestic without including yield percentages and percentage of applications.

Worth noting that most of the schools listed by op are not known for taking lots of international students so the numbers are a bit deceptive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From some of the popular universities that published the International data it looked like Internationals typically accounted for 20 to 25% of the applicants but about 8-10% of the enrolled base. So indeed, it does look better for domestic applicants who should check out the CDS for the Unis interested in.

But some of most selective schools take way more international students. For example, schools with percent enrolled internationals: NYU- 26%, Carnegie Mellon-24, Rochester-24, BU-23, Columbia-18, Emory -17, Chicago-16, Hopkins 15, Georgetown 14, NE 14, UCSD 14, Harvard 13, Dartmouth 13, Rice 13, UPenn 13, USC 13, Cal 13, Princeton 12, Brown 12, MIT 11

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From some of the popular universities that published the International data it looked like Internationals typically accounted for 20 to 25% of the applicants but about 8-10% of the enrolled base. So indeed, it does look better for domestic applicants who should check out the CDS for the Unis interested in.

But some of most selective schools take way more international students. For example, schools with percent enrolled internationals: NYU- 26%, Carnegie Mellon-24, Rochester-24, BU-23, Columbia-18, Emory -17, Chicago-16, Hopkins 15, Georgetown 14, NE 14, UCSD 14, Harvard 13, Dartmouth 13, Rice 13, UPenn 13, USC 13, Cal 13, Princeton 12, Brown 12, MIT 11

The key is whether the % of international applicants to total applicants is greater than the % of international enrollments to total enrolls. If so, then the admit rates for domestic applicants will be higher than the averages otherwise would suggest. Unfortunately the NYU CDS does not publish number of international applicants to be able to judge that.