Northwestern University Class of 2022 Early Decision Stats

Northwestern University has released statistics on its Early Decision pool for the Class of 2022. In all, 4,049 students applied under Northwestern’s binding Early Decision policy in the hope of becoming Wildcats. It marked the most Early Decision applicants to the university in Northwestern’s storied history. Of these 4,049 students, 1,072 earned admission to the Evanston, Illinois-based university. This marks an Early Decision acceptance rate of approximately 26%. As a competitive benchmark, last year’s Early Decision admit rate at Northwestern stood at 28%. So it was another banner Early Decision cycle for Northwestern University this year.

Northwestern University Class of 2022 Early Decision Pool

As reported in a piece in “The Daily Northwestern” by Maddie Burakoff entitled “Acceptance rates projected to fall as NU receives record number of applications,” “NU is targeting an incoming class of 1,925 first-year students, [associate provost for university admissions Michael] Mills said, and projects that around 54 percent of that class will be filled by the newly-admitted early applicants — though the number who will attend NU is not final because Early Decision students can withdraw based on financial burden. The class of 2020 was the first in which Early Decision students made up more than half of the incoming first-year class. The proportion of NU’s entering class coming from Early Decision has been roughly 50 to 54 percent for the past five years, according to University officials. NU is ‘comfortable’ with that level but ‘(does) not wish to see it go any higher at this time,’ the spokesman said.”

Early Admission Round Critics Must Play Musical Chairs

Those who don’t appreciate the benefit of applying in the Early Decision or Early Action round need to play a game of musical chairs and see what happens (photo credit: Artaxerxes).

And to all those folks who don’t appreciate the benefit of applying in the Early Decision or Early Action round, just realize that there will be only around 46% of seats left in Northwestern’s Class of 2022 for Regular Decision applicants to fill. And this kind of data isn’t unique to Northwestern University — it’s commonplace at just about all highly selective colleges. Perhaps the folks who don’t appreciate the benefit of applying under a school’s Early Decision or Early Action policies would be well served to play a game of musical chairs. See how many folks are circling those few chairs that are left in the Regular Decision round and then tell us there is no advantage in applying Early. We’ll be waiting for the music to stop. You just might be without a chair.