Why Acceptance to the Ivy League May Not Be As Elusive as You Think
While gaining acceptance into all 8 Ivy League schools remains a noteworthy accomplishment, it seems to be becoming more commonplace. One conclusion we can certainly draw from this accomplishment is that in order to be accepted to all 8 Ivy League schools, a student must first apply to all 8 Ivy League schools.
The New York Times recently reported that for the high school Class of 2015 “10 applications is now commonplace; 20 is taking on a familiar ring; even 30 is not beyond imagining.” Facilitated by the Common Application and fueled by fear of rejection, college bound students are self-perpetuating the college acceptance myth by taking a “scattershot” approach to college admissions and inflating the number of applications generated per applicant. For this reason, the odds of getting into an Ivy League school may not be as bad as the schools want you to think.
The following chart is taken from a recent Business Insider article reporting how the Ivy League acceptance rates have plummeted the last 10 years (which they have). The article correctly concludes that “this declining acceptance rate is largely a function of rapidly increasing applications received by each school. For example, Cornell University received 20,442 applications for the class of 2007 while it received 43,041 applications for the class of 2018.” The time has come to understand the difference between applications and applicants. The red arrows have been added to indicate when each school adopted the Common Application (Harvard adopted the Common App for the Class of 1998 and Dartmouth for the Class of 1999).
Each school experienced a dramatic increase in the number of applications received after joining the Common App together with a commensurate drop in acceptance rate. The inflated number of applications yields misleading acceptance statistics because one application does not equal one student when looking at the Ivy League as a whole. If an applicant sends an application to each Ivy League school and gets accepted into one, that applicant has a 100% Ivy League admit rate while 7 of the 8 schools remain highly selective.
To demonstrate, let’s say 8 students applied to every Ivy League school and 16 students applied to only one Ivy League school split evenly among the eight. Of the 8 people applying to all schools, each one was accepted to one school and the other 16 people were rejected by all 8.
The standard USN&WR acceptance chart would look something like this:
While the schools benefit by reporting a very selective 10% acceptance rate, the actual Ivy League acceptance rate for this group of applicants is 33% (8 of 24 people who applied received an Ivy League acceptance). When we look at the acceptance numbers from a student perspective (where one = one) rather than from an applications perspective (where one = many), the numbers make more sense and aren’t necessarily so scary. In fact, it probably places the acceptance rates closer to where they were pre Common Application.
Early decision is an interesting metric to study as early decision (ED) plans are binding — a student who is accepted as an ED applicant must attend the college. It follows that students applying as an ED candidate must select one school. Three Ivy League schools have reported full early decision data for the Class of 2019 and the results are surprising.
The actionable accept/reject admissions decisions by these schools heavily favor the ED applicant. Deferrals simply land back in the general admission applicant pools.
Penn is the only Ivy League school with early decision that has fully reported enrollment for the Class of 2019. Penn accepted 1,316 students via early decision and by definition these students will be enrolling. Of the 2,381 students accepted during the general admission phase only 1,124 enrolled. The University of Pennsylvania’s general admission yield rate is only 47 percent with less than half of the accepted students enrolling by the May 1st deadline. It seems likely that a significant number of the 1,259 accepted students who opted not to enroll at Penn decided to enroll at another Ivy League or highly selective school. All this seems to bode well for students who were waitlisted as well.
If your goal is an Ivy League education and you have the grades and test scores to compete then the recommendation is to use the Common Application to apply to all 8 Ivy League schools and to apply to one school early decision. Processing such a large number of applications has introduced a high degree of subjectivity into the Ivy League admissions process so use that subjectivity to your advantage. Stand out and set yourself apart by using social media as your digital billboard, engage and have a point of view.
