How many applicants does a school accept?

[WaitingImpatiently]

Let's just say a school has room for 130 students. 500 are interviewed, but how many are given straight acceptances (no waitlist)? I know the general "rule" is that about 2 times as many applicants are accepted as there are spaces, but those include people who come off the waitlist.
On a related not, how many people actually do come off the waitlist if a school has a class of about 130?

The reason I ask is because I'm waitlisted on a couple of schools, and I want to know what the realistic chances of being accepted off the list are. But there's also another school that i REALLY want to go to that I just recently interviewed at, and I really DON'T want to land on the waitlist for that school.

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[Amy B]

Ok, here's the scoop straight from the director of admissions.... "We accept 180 students. We don't over accept. That is a misconception people have when they think we accept ~300 but only 180 actual come. We stop accepting people when we have given out 180 acceptances. We then keep the acceptances at exactly 180. When someone declines our offer we send one out another one so that after March 15 (this year she said this date is April 15) we always have a filled class of 180 students." I was told this in person two weeks ago.

The bad news is that after May 15th this school splits their list off into two lists. For every student who withdraws their acceptance from the school they only fill their spot with a student from the same catagory. If it is an instate student who deceided not to come, then an instate student from the list is accepted. The same goes for the out of staters. I didn't know this before she told me.

This is the policy at VCU/MCV. I don't kow if it is the smae at other schools.

 

[Doctora Foxy]

amy, that's interesting about the splitting--i never knew that.

Regarding the number accepted, I heard a rumor (I think on interviewfeedback.com) that BU will send out 100 acceptances on Feb 15th. They only have about 100 spots open, besides their other programs, which have 30 spots. So this makes sense. If one more person agrees, than it becomes true (I think I heard that wise comment from A. Caveman :wink: )

 

[WaitingImpatiently]

I kind of suspected this (that they only initially accept the exact # that makes up their class)...

But how many people actually get ON their waitlist? If they put A LOT of people on the waitlist, then my status isn't as good as I thought.

 

[E'01]

I don't get it - Einstein says that they put 400 people on their waitlist. Why would they do that after accepting 180 (the size of their class).

 

[Doctora Foxy]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by E'01:
•I don't get it - Einstein says that they put 400 people on their waitlist. Why would they do that after accepting 180 (the size of their class).•••••Because they can.

 

[vyc]

wait but a lot of schools do actually accept about double the number of their desired class size, right?
bc that's all i've ever heard, from all the schools i've interviewed at. (i think)

 

[coop]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by E'01:
•I don't get it - Einstein says that they put 400 people on their waitlist. Why would they do that after accepting 180 (the size of their class).•••••you are assuming that everyone they put on the waitlist will necessarily come if accepted off the waitlist. This assumption is incorrect. While 400 is obviously playing it safe, it is at least possible that they would need that many.

 

[LizardKing]

It depends on the school. The WashU adcom dean says that they normally accept 240 people for a class of 120. They expect lots of people not to come.

 

[racergirl]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by vyc:
•wait but a lot of schools do actually accept about double the number of their desired class size, right?
bc that's all i've ever heard, from all the schools i've interviewed at. (i think)•••••Yes, but ULTIMATELY. Initially, most (if not all) schools give out only enough acceptances to fill their class. As spots open up, more acceptances are offered.

 

[Jalby]

Check out USnews.com. You can find out how many offers the schools gave two years ago.

 

[rajneel1]

schools that i have interviewed at accept like 2X the number of spots and then pull like 1/3X of their class size from the waitlist people.

 

[botticelli]

Hey, Foxy,
So if a school like BU accepts 100 people Feb. 15, does that mean they have interviewed all the people they are going to interview by that point? That seems kind of early for a year like this. Maybe, hmm..??? I hope??