Admissions Figures on Elon, Harvey Mudd, Brandeis and Nearly 100 Other Colleges

Jacques Steinberg:

In the few days since my colleague Eric Platt and I began publishing our running tally on how many students applied to -- and were accepted by -- various colleges and universities this year, the ledger has more than doubled, to 100.

Those of you who've been following this exercise know that our table is to be read with several caveats in mind. One is that it is far too early in the endgame of this year's decision process to draw meaningful conclusions from these figures, especially considering that they represent a fraction of the nation's four-year colleges and universities. Moreover, as a number of commenters have noted, colleges and universities sometimes spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on mass-mailing campaigns to drive up the number of applications they receive -- and, in effect, drive down their admission rates -- so that what might appear to be instant popularity could well be manufactured.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at April 7, 2011 1:36 AM
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