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When you applied or if you will apply to a college, did you/will you choose the school partially based on acceptance rates?
Do you find acceptance rates important?
And if you do, what acceptance rates do you think are credible enough to make the school look competitive and legitimate? Or, in other words, what acceptance rates are you most attracted to? (0-10%, 10-20%, 20-30%, 30-40, 40-50%, etc.)
While I feel that acceptance rates are incredibly important, it was not something that I considered greatly when I was applying to colleges. I had other family-related limiting factors that basically made me choose a college close to my family.
However, it turns out that my college has a fairly competitive acceptance rate of 8.2%. If a school is accepting a large percentage of applicants, you have to wonder why.
Acceptance rates are one of the LEAST important factors to consider when looking at colleges, other than gauging your chances at acceptance its a meaningless number...
There are plenty of very good colleges that accept 60% or more of applicants...
There are far more important numbers to look at such as freshman retention rate, 4 and 6 year graduation rate, percent of graduates in full time employment or graduate school post graduation....
Low acceptance rates are great if you want to brag to your friends and family if you are into that sort of thing...
When you applied or if you will apply to a college, did you/will you choose the school partially based on acceptance rates?
Do you find acceptance rates important?
And if you do, what acceptance rates do you think are credible enough to make the school look competitive and legitimate? Or, in other words, what acceptance rates are you most attracted to? (0-10%, 10-20%, 20-30%, 30-40, 40-50%, etc.)
Undergrad acceptance rates are very highly correlated to reputation. Yes, it was definitely a consideration when I was a kid.
All of that stuff means much less than you think in the real world.
Every year that passes, I feel it means less and less.
Acceptance rates are important only to make sure you are not only applying to schools with single digit acceptance rates. Of course the Ivy League schools have low acceptance rates because people apply so they can say they applied. There is some name recognition that goes along with that but they also keep their enrollment size low to create those rates. If you went by those rates and actually put any stock in those rates, anyone going to a non Ivy is doomed to flip burgers, but alas, there are unemployed Harvard grads too.
Acceptance rates can be misleading. For instance, my university was very self-selecting so while it has had a 35-40% acceptance rate for several years, the average SAT score (reading + math) is over 1350. It's a school that attracts a very specific type of student.
I didn't apply to any colleges that had over a 50% acceptance rate or under a 1250 average SAT score. Looking back, I kind of regret that. I went from being a big fish in a small pond to a very small fish in a big pond filled with other previously big fishes.
No, never considered acceptance rates as a factor, but I recalled looking at the stats. For colleges I was interested in, I looked more at the percentage of graduates than overall acceptance rates. I also had looked at various majors as well and what the schools offered. I also never considered applying to an Ivy.
When I was in high school, that was actually the main factor that we looked at. It was associated with prestige. I applied to the most competitive schools I could get into. I got into a pretty competitive place (not Ivy league competitive, but the next rung down). However, I haven't been very successful, and no one really seems to care where I went to school anymore.
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