A rudimetary look at application increases

Question

So to kill some time in the waiting game, I was looking at admissions411 stats. The site seems to have fallen in usage a lot compared to last year, but I took a look at relative statistics among schools.

I took the top 10 schools by applicants (dropping Tuck and Columbia because I can't figure out how to match stats because they have ED), and divided the number of applicants in R1 this year by the number of applicants last year. Below are the schools and ratios. The higher ratios indicates an increase in apps relative to other schools. I'm sure there are tons of biases in this "study," but I thought it would be fun to play around with. So here it is:

Michigan - 0.49
Cornell - 0.48
Wharton - 0.42
Fuqua - 0.41
Chicago - 0.37
Kellogg - 0.36
MIT Sloan - 0.35
Harvard - .33
Haas - 0.29
Stanford - 0.28
NYU Stern - 0.27

Assuming all schools saw some sort of increase, Michigan has the biggest relative to other schools, and Stanford had the smallest.

Edited to add NYU, Haas, and Cornell

bherronp · Answer

Now my comment won't explain your whole list, but it may explain Michigan. Do you think that Michigan's apps may be way up because it is a quality school that has historically had a higher acceptance ratio than its peers? Therefore, in a highly competitive year a large number of people may have chose to apply to it hoping that it gives them a better chance to go to an elite business school.

I can also understand Stanford being towards the bottom. I think about their 7% acceptance ratio last year and their probable 5% ratio this year and wonder why I am bothering. Might as well light 200 bucks on fire. Oh well, ill just pretend that I put 200 bucks on a single number in roulette and lost, its getting close to the same odds.

riverripper · Answer

I would not be surprised if Ross, Duke, and the other Elites are seeing huge increases relative to the M7 schools. These definitely get a lot of people who are using them as a backup to the Ultra Elites. So with the increased difficulty of the top 5 or 7 schools a lot of people are hedging their bets and applying to more schools and the smart choice is to spread the risk out and apply to a top 15 instead of another top 5.

Looking at stats on BW from the 2002-2003 timeframe a lot of the top schools had acceptance rates in the teens and yields that were above current levels, H/S both had single digit acceptance rates. Seems like this is the direction we are heading in. It will be interesting to see what the numbers are next year.

dosa_don · Answer

It is some interesting analysis and I agree that there are some 'biases'. 1- the population itself could have changed especially Ross, W and Duke tend to attract a lot of Indians and Indians tend to be more active on online forums/db's. Also I think we should wait till the end of R1 results as more people tend to post their stats post acceptances. 

But interesting none the less. Interesting to see last years Ross's selectivity was ~20% (down from 27% the year before) which is pretty low for a lot of people considering it to be a 'safe' school.

bherronp · Answer

But that is much higher than alot of the schools that are around the same quality. Heck, Haas was significantly lower than that.

Of course, what you consider to be a safe school depends on your credentials. If you are good enough that you should have a 50/50 shot at H/S/W, then Michigan could be a safety school for you. Personally, I don't feel that I have any safety schools. I just have "I have a chance to get in there" and "I must be insane" schools.

dosa_don · Answer

Yeah- agree on all counts. Haas is much more difficult to get in there but its selectivity is similar to MIT Kellogg Tuck etc...

riverripper · Answer

I think an interesting analysis for people on here would be the difficulty for internationals. I have read in some places that +40% of applicants are international and they typically make up about 30% of the class. Their also seeing a greater increase at most schools than Americans, so that tends to make on assume that selectivity for internationals is much greater.

I read on Sandy's thread on BW that Indians (just pasted Canadians) now make up the largest group outside of americans and it was something like 40 in the entire class of 900+ students.

gmatclb · Answer

You have to also look at the total number of applications each school received.

Stanford aleady has thousands of applications, so if there is an increase in total b school applicants, Stanford won't really see much increase.

It's like going from 90th to 91st percentile vs 98 to 99 percentile. The 90 to 91ers have it easier.

kryzak · Answer

interesting. What worries me is Haas' recent increases... about 500 per year since 2005. Last year was 3200 with 480 admits. this year may go over 3500 applicants. Stanford is already insane with almost 6000 applicants last year (should break 6000 this year) and only accepting 400-500 students. 

I'd be ecstatic if I can get into any school this year...

A rudimetary look at application increases

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