Acceptance rate is not a great measure of selectivity
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Anonymous
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I often see educated people casually evaluating schools based on the acceptance rate. This is a stupid thing to do. Allow me to explain why.
A school can have a "lower" acceptance rate, but be less selective than a school with a "higher" one. This is because the pool of applicants, for some schools, includes larger numbers of unqualified candidates than others. The only way to evaluate a school's selectivity is to check the stats for admitted freshman. And even then you have to distinguish between "admitted" vs "enrolled" freshman. Obviously, schools with single digit acceptance rates are probably far more selective than schools with 90% acceptance rates, but when School A has a 50% acceptance rate and School B as a 40% acceptance rate, you really have to look at the details to know what's what. Feel free to ignore this, but know that when you talk about how School A can't be all that great because the acceptance rate is higher than School B, informed people will know that you are a bit of a prat. |
Anonymous
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Of course, everyone knows this. Selectivity is not even accurately reflected if you look just at acceptance rates and tests scores/GPAs because different schools have different priorities in what they are looking for in an applicant.
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Anonymous
| The common app has destroyed acceptance rates. |
Anonymous
I don't know anyone who evaluates a school based solely or primarily on acceptance rates. And I know some important people. 
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Anonymous
| Looking at acceptance rates, yields, GPAS, SATs, performance across many rankings and also gauging the general perception the school has is a far more accurate way to gauge selectivity. No sophisticated person looks at just acceptance rate. |
Anonymous
I think USNWR does? It's skewed the rankings and created weird incentives for schools to get applicants that they know they'll reject. |
Anonymous
| With the common app, and top students submitting 10-15 applications, don't the selective colleges likely end up selecting the same 10-20% of applicants. I would assume that a large chunk of kids end up with multiple acceptances, and other top candidates are shut out |
Anonymous
| My neighbor's kid is doing Liberty University online and the mom has told me more than once that Liberty "has a 20% acceptance rate". I believe this is technically correct, at least for on-campus, but it has nothing to do with academic selectiveness. |
Anonymous
Liberty is very popular among kids at our church, and they all tout it's low acceptance rate, but I don't know anyone who has ever been rejected. |
Anonymous
I just looked up the common data set for Liberty on college data. It lists a 28% acceptance rate, but under entrance difficulty, it says this... Minimally Difficult: Most freshmen were not in the top 50% of their high school class and scored somewhat below 1010 on the SAT I or below 19 on the ACT; up to 95% of all applicants accepted. How do they reconcile this with the 28% acceptance rate listed? |
Anonymous
| Acceptance rates are also heavily impacted by marketing. UChicago, WashU, and Swarthmore send out far more marketing and assign materials than peer schools, driving the acceptance rate down considerably. I know Swarthmore actually gave out a bunch of free app waivers for students who did not respond to their emails/communication as a last desperation act. |
Anonymous
| oh and also, lots of other ways to get apps. Get rid of supplemental essays or make them optional. Make the app fee completely free. Cut down on requirements like subject tests or make test scores optional. I've noticed mostly LACs do this, likely because they're struggling to gather apps to the extent top universities are. It even happens at the highest ranked ones. |
Anonymous
No, shameless lying admissions reps, mass mailers, fee waivers, web cookies, and companies selling your kid's email and home address have destroyed acceptance rates. Common App is an equalizer. It's amazing kids anywhere in the country (or world) can apply to any US university via this one website. Cliff notes: Common App = cool. Colleges like UChicago shamelessly hounding every idiot in the country to apply = not cool. |
Anonymous
Easy. They get tons of unqualified applicants. That's the point of the thread. Liberty apparently has a lower acceptance rate than many prestigious and selective private schools -- but 50% of the class scored a 1010 on their SAT. That's why you can't take "acceptance rate" at face value. It means little by itself. |
Anonymous
I know plenty of UVA grads that seem to monitor and boast about the newest acceptance rate as if it reflects how difficult it was to get in when they attended in the 80s. 
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