We've spent a fair number of hours scraping data off common data sets. These are standardized data submissions that most universities post yearly. A good directory can be found here. These files contain a host of data on enrolment, applications, and retention but we chose to pluck out three key numbers:
- Admit rate (percent of completed applicants accepted)
- SAT/ACT submission rate (percent of enrolled students who submitted standardized test scores)
- Yield percentage (percent of admitted students who enrolled)
We compiled this data from over 200 American universities using the US News rankings as a point of departure for selection. For this month we will be looking at admit rates and submission rates. To keep the data as clean as possible, we have stripped out schools that are test blind (UCs) and also those that are test required (MIT, Georgia/Florida publics, Georgetown, service academies). We have also not included schools that didn't include testing data (ahem, Dartmouth et. al.).
By admit % Submit Rate Admit rate
Top 20 69.6% 6.5%
Top 40 62.7% 9.3%
Top 60 61.3% 12.8%
Top 100 57.8% 23.4%
Top 150 55.4% 35.7%
Top 200 54.3% 47.5%
Over half of the enrolled student in the 200 most rejective American universities submitted test scores, nearly 70% to the top 20.
By admit % Submit Rate Admit rate
1 to 20 69.6% 6.5%
21 to 40 55.9% 12.0%
41 to 60 58.5% 19.9%
61 to 100 52.7% 39.8%
101 to 150 50.3% 60.0%
151 to 200 51.1% 82.6%
Segmented by group, the number is still well north of 50%. So among all enrolled students in schools from number 41 (Wesleyan U) to 60 (Scripps), 58.5% submitted test scores and the average admit rate among those schools was about 20%.
How is something that over half of people do really "optional"? Seems that a better word might be "preferred".
We'll be doing some analysis on yield and also on how these numbers differ among large publics, privates, and smaller colleges in the months to come.
