Greetings Rising Seniors and anybody else who wants to look at which colleges are a “fit” for them.
While this post is going to take a look at some early application results for this year, first let me digress for a paragraph: the “fit” of a college–how well it matches your needs and qualifications– is a bit more like the fit of a pair of good jeans than it is s simple statistical match. The ratings you see in various services like the U.S. News don’t tell you anything about how you will feel at a particular school. Location, including weather, culture and activities are also part of the package of things to consider, along with the usual suspects, like the size of the campus, class sizes and strength of programs.
But this is still early days, and I have talked about fit elsewhere (and will again, soon), so let’s move on to some data on the more popular names–though it’s never early to try to think outside the box, as I will show.
Early Admissions for Fall of 2019 (Class of 2023):
Princeton
13.9 % admitted (743 accepted out of 5,335 applicants, and you can assume that over 80% of those will accept and attend).
Harvard:
13.4% admitted. (935 accepted out of 6,598-and again, the yield–those who accept the admissions offer–will be in the 80% range)
Yale
13.1% admiited (794 accepted out of 6,016 early action applicants. This will also be a very high yield group, and Jeremiah Quinlan, the current Dean of Undergrad Admissions stated the 56% of those not accepted were deferred and will be reconsidered for admissions)
Columbia
Has not released results. They are the most chary in providing data among the Ivy League (that New Yawk attitude, I guess) but they did say that 4,461 students applied for binding Early Decision. They won’t tell you anything about their admit rate for ED, but I do want to point out that this means hundreds more early applicants this year over last. And now let’s jump to my go-to application for the Ivies, Cornell–great offerings across the board in terms of majors and quality of programs, and still the easiest Ivy to get into:
Cornell
22.6% accepted in Cornell’s Early Decision applications (1,395 admits out of 6,159 apps . . . Among other things to note, Cornell was overt in its appeal to legacy applicants, indicating that they should show their seriousness by doing an early decision app [and then pay whatever tuition package Cornell offers, as you give up your chance to wait to see what other offers might come when you apply E.D. . . Just remindin’] ).
Your Takeway
I realize that this is far from a complete review of Ivy League early app data, but it is enough to “do the math.” And the math says that you can double to nearly triple your chances with an early application of whatever kind, on a raw statistical basis.
How do I know this? From last year’s data. Look below for a more complete picture of early versus regular decision last year (meaning people who were incoming freshman last August). The reality, however, is that the raw numbers don’t say a lot about any individual’s chances of admission, and there are important “other” factors, such as . . . well that legacy leverage, indicated above in that comment from Cornell. Yes, a legacy applicant who applies early will get a boost, it’s official. Please note, Dear Reader, that I am not commenting on that in any way; I am just stating the facts, which is the only purpose of this post. I have written about this before, however, and will write about this again . . . but for now, look below and you will find last year’s early and regular application data–then do the math as you start thinking about where to apply, and where to apply early
Last year’s data (Class of 2022):
Some Ivy League examples and Stanford in 2018:
Princeton: Early Admissions–15.4%; Regular Admissions–5.5% (6.1% last year [2017] )
Harvard: Early Admissions–14.539%; Regular Admissions–4.59% (5.2% last year [2017] )
Yale: Early Admissions–14.68%; Regular Admissions–6.3% (6.9% last year [2017] )
Columbia–5.5% admit rate; no data supplied for early admissions admit rate. (At least some things are consistent . . . )
UPenn–Early Admissions–18.5%; Regular Admissions–8.39% (9.15% last year)
Brown: Early Admissions–21.7%*; Regular Admissions–7.2%
Cornell: Early Admissions–24.3%; Regular Admissions–10.3%
Dartmouth–Early Admissions–24.9%; Regular Admissions–8.7%
Saving the toughest nut for last:
Stanford; Regular Admissions–4.3%; Stanford has not released early application information, or not released it until the following year, for some time, but about 33% of the new class was admitted early. (Again, this is last year’s data. I will update on Stanford soon, but they are becoming the Columbia of the West Coast in terms of data stinginess . . . so much for information wanting to be free.
*Oh, and The Brown early admissions asterisk for fall of 2018 entry data (class of 2022) was due to this data being released indirectly via a presentation, rather than through a press release. I updated it separately, for my clients. This is a free blog site so . . . not everything gets posted here, but I do hope you find it useful, Oh Free Public User).