Colby College has a transparency problem. This private liberal arts college has experienced a significant increase in prestige and selectivity in recent years, resulting in a corresponding rise in scrutiny of the school’s admission process. Count Ivy Coach as no exception to those taking a magnifying glass to Colby’s admissions process. We have one question for the admissions officers over at Colby College: where are your Common Data Sets?

Let’s back up. What is The Common Data Set Initiative, why are we calling on Colby to publish theirs, and what does this have to do with Colby’s Early Decision program? The Common Data Set is a federally maintained repository of data that all higher education institutions are highly encouraged to publish annually. Is a school like Colby legally required to publish this data? No, but it’s certainly frowned upon that they haven’t (as they are one of the only elite schools in the nation to not participate in the program).

Common Data Set Data is a Must For Assembling the Early Decision Acceptance Rate

To glean the Early Decision acceptance rate of a school like Colby, journalists, students, and yes, admissions blogs such as our own, would normally turn to The Common Data Set and compile the reported data through the years. Some schools may not have reported Early Decision data every year, but most have done so at least a handful of times.

Alas, this is the situation we’ve been presented with due to the dearth of data at Colby College. We’d love to expound upon Colby’s Early Decision acceptance rate over the years, but the college’s admissions officers have not only declined to participate in The CDS Initiative but have also not shared this data in press releases. We thus have only one year of Early Decision Data to unpack

Colby College’s Combined Early Decision I + II Admissions Statistics for the Class of 2020

Admissions Cycle	Colby College Class Year	Early Decision Acceptance Rate
2015-16	Class of 2020	43.23%

For admission to the Class of 2020, the one publicly available data point suggests that the Early Decision acceptance for the 2015-16 admissions cycle was a respectable 43.23%.  Colby’s decreasing overall acceptance rate since 2015 would suggest that the ED acceptance rate has likely declined as well, but we don’t yet have data to substantiate this claim. It’s also possible that Colby has done something many other elite schools have started to do recently: drawn more and more students from the pool of Early applicants. This could have resulted in an increased Early Decision acceptance rate between the time the Class of 2020 was admitted and now, with an attendant decrease in the Regular Decision acceptance rate; however, this is also just pure conjecture.

While only Colby admissions officers are aware of the most up-to-date Early Decision acceptance rate, this figure suggests that, like all selective liberal arts colleges, Colby prefers to admit a large number of highly enthusiastic applicants who know Colby is their top choice. The Early Decision admissions boost, in other words, is alive and well at this prestigious liberal arts college.

Ivy Coach’s Assistance with a Colby College Deferral or Rejection

If you’ve been deferred or rejected to Colby College’s Class of 2030, this is not the end of your road. Not even close. Hold onto hope, and in the meantime, Ivy Coach’s team of former elite college admissions officers is here to help you understand what went wrong and optimize your odds of admission to Colby or another Regular Decision school. Fill out our complimentary consultation form to learn more about our go-forward services, including a PostMortem for rejected candidates and a PostMortem followed by assistance in crafting a powerful Letter of Continued Interest for deferred candidates. 

We’ll help you dissect not only what went wrong, but how to pivot to a new competitive strategy that will knock the socks off of any admissions officer who stumbles across your application. And remember: time is of the essence, so act now!