Misleading Ivy League Acceptance Rates

Ivy League acceptance rates are important figures to examine but they don’t paint the full selectivity picture at these institutions (photo credit: Gavin Huang).

There’s a piece up on “Business Insider” by Abby Jackson entitled “Ivy League acceptance rates have always been low — but the decline over the past 10 years has made them almost impossible to get into” that we of course had to share with the readers of our college admissions blog. Abby writes many great pieces on highly selective college admissions. We just feel the need to share that just because admission rates get lower just about every year, that doesn’t mean that these colleges are getting more and more difficult to get into. And it certainly doesn’t mean that Ivy League colleges in particular are almost impossible to get into. That could demotivated interested, high-achieving students from applying.

Think about it like this. Each and every year, colleges get better and better at getting students to apply. They perfect their algorithms, their marketing, their targeted applicants. But just because more and more students are applying to schools like the Ivy League colleges does not mean they’re getting more competitive. Additional ‘B’ students in the applicant pool do not make a school more selective. It just means the college appealed — and succeeded in appealing — to more students. Yes, that’s right, highly selective colleges, each and every one of them, encourage unqualified students from applying. And why? Because “US News & World Report,” the esteemed ranker of colleges, makes no distinction in their rankings if a school rejected tons of ‘C’ students as compared to tons of ‘A’ students. The more students who apply, invariably the lower the admission rate will be, which positively impacts a school’s all-important “US News & World Report” ranking.

You will find no more comprehensive compilation and analysis of Ivy League admissions statistics anywhere in the world than on the pages of our website. But always think about data before accepting it blindly. Just because a school has a single-digit acceptance rate doesn’t mean it’s near impossible to get into. In fact, if you submit an outstanding application, have great grades and scores, demonstrate how you’re going to contribute to the university in an area of interest to them, and more, you’ll have a great shot of getting in. In spite of the gloomy, often misleading statistics.