Posted on: 13 Aug 2026
When applying to a school like Carnegie Mellon that only accepts 11% of applicants, it’s important to keep in mind that the other 89% of applicants will ultimately be denied admission. Many of these rejected individuals will have straight A’s in high school and/or SATs in the 1500s. Those applying to certain programs, computer science […]
Posted on: 12 Aug 2026
Consider the rower first. Nine of the twenty-six elite Division III colleges in this analysis field rowing at all. At those nine, rowing accounts for about 20 roster places per entering class, one of the three largest per-college squads in the division. Seventeen of the twenty-six colleges offer nothing. Now the golfer. Twenty-one of the […]
Posted on: 05 Aug 2026
Most universities that draw more applicants become harder to enter. Case Western Reserve did the opposite. Its applicant pool grew from about 33,000 for the Fall 2021 class to more than 39,000 for Fall 2025, and across the same stretch the admit rate rose from 30 percent to 35 percent, touching nearly 38 percent along […]
Posted on: 30 Jul 2026
A high school senior in Bucks County opens her Penn State decision in December and finds good news and a complication in the same letter. She is admitted to University Park for the fall, which is what she wanted. She is not admitted to the Smeal College of Business, which is also what she wanted. […]
Posted on: 30 Jul 2026
Rice’s admit rate has barely moved in three years. It read 7.88 percent for the Fall 2023 entering class, 8.00 percent for Fall 2024, and 8.01 percent for Fall 2025, three consecutive readings inside a fifth of a point. A number that steady usually describes an institution that has found its equilibrium and stopped adjusting. […]
Posted on: 28 Jul 2026
Purdue’s admit rate fell from 68.9 percent to 43.4 percent across five entering classes. That is the steepest five-year compression of any university examined in this series, and the usual reading of such a number is that the university became far harder to enter. For most of the people who apply, that reading is correct. […]
Posted on: 23 Jul 2026
In the fall of 2021, Miami received 1,511 Early Decision applications and admitted 978 of them. Four cycles later it received 2,395 and admitted 1,062. The pool grew by 59 percent, the number of offers moved by fewer than a hundred, and the early admit rate fell from roughly 65 percent to 44 percent. Nothing […]
Posted on: 23 Jul 2026
For the class that entered in Fall 2024, USC did something it had never done before: it opened an early action round. Applications were due November 1, decisions went out January 19, and nothing about the plan was binding. The change looked modest next to the binding early decision programs that dominate selective private admissions, […]