Why Acceptance Rates Don't Matter

Level 3 - Advanced Concepts

Welcome back! Going to be straight forward on this one.

Speaking with some parents, there is this belief that the one number that matters most in college admissions is a college’s acceptance rate.

For some, they are viewing the acceptance rate as a determining figure as to the selectivity of a college. And then using that view of selectivity to influence their college choices.

Let’s be clear - this is wrong for several reasons.

Part 1: Acceptance Rate Explained

The acceptance rate at a college is simple to calculate. Take the number of students accepted and divide it by the total number of applicants and you have an acceptance rate.

An example:

• 10,000 applicants

• 1,000 students accepted

• 1,000/10,000 = 10% acceptance rate

Now that you understand how an acceptance rate is calculated, let’s think about what it actually means.

An acceptance rate is a function of how many students apply and how many you accept. If people are applying to more colleges, you are driving up the number of applicants in the pool, even if the overall number of people going to college is flat or even declining year over year.

In the above example, assume another 1,000 people apply to the college, with the same number of students accepted.

• 11,000 applicants (10,000 original and additional 1,000)

• 1,000 students accepted

• 1,000/11,000 = 9.1% acceptance rate

Suddenly, the college has seen an acceptance rate decrease. In the eyes of many, this college has become “more selective.”

Part 2: Why Acceptance Rate Does Not Matter

But that selectivity is not a complete story without context.

Let’s use the same example as above:

• 11,000 applicants (10,000 original and additional 1,000)

• 1,000 students accepted

• 1,000/11,000 = 9.1% acceptance rate

If that college has an average accepted student SAT score of 1300, but the additional 1,000 applicants all an SAT score of 1150, then most of these applicants are unlikely to be accepted if the SAT were the sole decider.

In other words, you can add a lot of underqualified applicants to a pool to inflate a school’s acceptance rate.

Now some will argue and say “what if they are actually competitive applicants going into the pool?” While it is likely that some of the additional applicants are competitive, it highlights that acceptance rate is not as important as the qualifications of the applicant pool.

Let’s use a hypothetical applicant - a student with a 3.7 and a 1300 SAT.

If a college’s accepted student statistics show 3.5 and 1200 SAT, then even if multiple students join in the range of accepted students, the hypothetical applicant will still be above the range. That means the acceptance rate for them loses its meaning.

So even if the selectivity appears greater on paper because the acceptance rate goes down, you need to know the academic profile of the accepted students to know what selectivity even means.

Conclusion:

To be clear, we are not saying that acceptance rate is irrelevant. At the end of the day, you do need to know the odds. A college with a 50% acceptance rate is very different from a college with a 4% acceptance rate, regardless of the academic profile of the accepted students.

The point is that acceptance rate as the most important metric for selectivity is incomplete at best, lazy at worst.

Simply put, acceptance rate ≠ probability of acceptance. It only tells you how many students are accepted relative to the volume of applications received.