Acceptance rates for US Universities
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U.S. News and other rankings publish data on acceptance rates for US universities. This post is about the significance of such data. First let us look at the acceptance rates of some top graduate level engineering programs:
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 23.5%
2 Stanford University 28.0%
3 University of California Berkeley 20.4%
4 Georgia Institute of Technology 36.8%
5 University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign 19.2%
6 California Institute of Technology 13.1%
7 Carnegie Mellon University 21.8%
8 University of Southern California Los Angeles 46.6%
9 Cornell University 19.8%
9 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor 36.4%
Cal Tech is the most selective among the top engineering universities and USC is the most generous in handing out admissions, particularly for M.S.
As an applicant when you look at this data, it still does not mean much to you. If you are not good for USC, you wont be in the top 46% and if you are too good, Cal Tech will still accept you.
Acceptance rate in itself does not make a program reputable, rather it is a by product of lots of factors. Let us compare UIUC and USC. UIUC application fee is $40 and $50 for international applicants. USC fee is flat $85. It is reasonable to infer that more qualified students apply to UIUC due to almost half application fee. That must be a factor in UIUC to turn down more than 80% of the applicants. Another factor is the graduate student enrolment, which is approximately 4000 for USC and 2500 for UIUC.
Now let us analyze Cornell and Michigan Ann Arbor, both ranked 9 at US News for Engineering. Even the application fee and tuition fee are comparable. Here the key is total intake - 1378 for Cornell and 2416 for Michigan. On head to head comparison, Michigan looks more attractive as chances of admission should be high for a typical applicant. However individual details like research interest do defy such generalizations.
What do we suggest? Be informed about the acceptance rate data and use it as a tie breaker between similarly ranked universities. Please understand that a better acceptance rate does not always make that university suitable for you. Refer http://www.app2us.com/univ-selection/acceptance.htm for more information.
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