Reply to Which universities have gone DOWN in stature over the years?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]W&M is an obvious answer.

Ranking drop from 32 -&gt; 38.
Acceptance rate went from 33% to 42%, higher than large publics like UT Austin and UMD. While large publics like Berkeley are reaching single-digit acceptance rates, W&M's is increasing.

Student enrollment has increased.

Their law school has gone completely downhill.

W&M used to be more difficult to get into than UVA, due to a smaller number seats. It had higher SAT scores than UVA, the highest among publics comparable to Berkley. It was compared to the smaller Ivies like Dartmouth/Brown and SLACs like Swarthmore. It attracted out-of-staters and wealthy internationals that would never consider a large public for OOS tuition, but would consider W&M due to the size and feel.

Nowadays, UVA is far more tougher to get in, [b]has far higher SAT scores[/b] and far great national and international reach.[/quote]

Per most recent CDS:

UVA 25th/75th percentile SAT - 1330-1490
W&M 25th/75th percentile SAT - 1360-1520

both have average GPAs of 4.3.

Perhaps W&M’s higher acceptance rate is a function of some other factor other than the caliber of students they attract.  Maybe since UVA and has more prominent sports and a better college town and is bigger it appeals to more kids who apply that are more borderline. W&M is bit more niche in that it a very small public, so more like a SLAC. Williamsburg is pretty sleepy too.

Maybe, just maybe, acceptance rate is not a good indication of how good a school is at any rate.[/quote]

Those SAT scores and GPA are either wrong or outdated. As I stated, W&M had higher SAT/ACT scores and GPA than UVA, but that is no longer the case.

This is not regarding W&M being niche or not or its acceptance rate at any given time compared to UVA. W&M has had a higher acceptance rate than UVA for more than a decade now.

It's about the [b]trend[/b].

A decade ago, UVA had an acceptance rate of 29-30% while W&M's was 32-33%. In Fall 2020, UVA's acceptance rate had dropped to 23% and W&M's had increased to 42%. Meanwhile acceptance rates across the country have decreased due to increased applications.

At the same time, W&M's yield has decreased to mid-20's. Yield at all schools has decreased but not to the same extent, and schools with decreasing yields have also seen decreasing acceptance rates, not the opposite.

W&M has not become any more of a niche school than it was before. The number of students preferring a niche academic-focused school over a large sports-focused school has not decreased in proportion, and if anything has increased in proportion when looking at the popularity of schools like U. Chicago, Rice, Tufts, Swarthmore, etc.

Rather, W&M has become less of a niche, academic-focused school. They tried to become a more Greek, sports-focused school instead to attract the type of students that prefer UVA-type school. In the process it lost the students that preferred the Tufts-type school while clearly not gaining any of the former. [/quote]

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