“Best of the Rest” Colleges
Collectively, the 44 “best of the rest” colleges received a total of almost 1.35 million applications for the class of 2025 and accepted about 41% of them. These 44 colleges accepted almost 4 times the number of applicants on average compared to the 61 highly selective colleges which averaged an acceptance rate of 11.8%.
These 44 colleges represent the colleges with acceptance rates greater than 25% whose SAT middle 50% score ranges start at 1200 at the lower boundary for the class of 2025. This group of colleges follow right behind the 61 highly selective colleges with acceptance rates at 25% or less and they have overlapping academic metrics with the highly selective colleges indicating that these colleges impose generally rigorous academic standards in admissions.
Acceptance rates vary quite significantly among the 44 colleges. University of California Irvine leads the group with an acceptance rate of 26%, followed by Denison University and University of Miami both with a 28% acceptance rate and University of California Santa Barbara, University of Florida, University of Richmond and University of Texas at Austin all with acceptance rates of 29%.
At the other end of the range for acceptance rates, American University (44%), Rensselaer Polytechnic (60%), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (60%), University of Pittsburgh (67%) and University of Wisconsin-Madison (60%) have relatively high acceptance rates at 60% or greater.
For applicants with high academic achievement who believe that they are competitive for admission to one of the 61 highly selective colleges, this group of 44 colleges provides them with a very strong list of “safety” schools to round out their college applications list.
Table of Applications and Acceptance Rates at the 44 “Best of the Rest” Colleges - Class of 2025
Note: The acceptance data is compiled/computed from the Common Data Sets.
Higher Acceptance Rates at Early Action and Early Decision
Compared to the thousands of Early Decision/Early Action applications received by the 61 highly selective colleges, the number of Early Decision applications received by the 44 “best of the rest” colleges were very modest in number.
University of Georgia stands out because the number of Early Action applications received actually exceeded the number of Regular Decision applications by 2,712 applications or 7% of total applications.
While less than half of these 44 colleges disclosed their Early Action and Early Decision application and acceptance data, those that did disclose the relevant data demonstrated clearly that it pays to apply early. The acceptance rates at Early Action and Early Decision were generally 1.2 times to 2 times higher than acceptance rates for Regular Decision.
Only at Case Western Reserve University, Reed College, University of Georgia and University of Rochester were the acceptance rates between Early Action/Early Decision and Regular Decision more or less the same.
In general, the acceptance rates for Early Action/Early Decision were very high, in many cases exceeding 50%, and at Bryn Mawr College, Dickinson College and Lehigh University, acceptance rates reached 70%.
For those applicants planning to lock in their “safety” school early, applying Early Action to a college that offers it is frequently a prudent move. Early Action acceptances are not binding (unlike Early Decision acceptances), leaving the applicant free to pursue admissions at other colleges during the Regular Decision phase of the admissions cycle.
Lehigh University and Skidmore College were the only colleges where applicants who applied Early Decision made up about half of their matriculating class. At the 17 other colleges that disclosed early data, Early Decision applicants made up a less than half of the incoming freshman class.
Given that the main purpose of applying Early Decision is to lock in a position at a “dream” college, the data makes it quite apparent fewer applicants consider these 44 colleges as their “dream” schools.
See: How to make smart use of Early Decision and Early Action
Low Yields for the 44 Colleges
University of California Irvine and University of Texas at Austin experienced the highest yields among the 44 colleges with 50% and 48% respectively of accepted students choosing to matriculate to them.
More than one third of these colleges (16 colleges) experienced yields of less than 20%, meaning that less than 20% of accepted students chose to matriculate to the college.
19 of the colleges experienced yields between 20% and 30%, while another 6 experienced yields between 30% and 40%, leaving only 3 colleges with yields above 40%.
For these 44 colleges, predicting who will actually show up on campus is extremely difficult, since many of their accepted applicants possess credentials that would have gotten them accepted at other colleges as well. To manage enrollment numbers, these colleges issue large numbers of waitlist offers as well, and draw on those waitlists more frequently than the 61 highly selective colleges.
The “Best of the Rest” Colleges are not as Demanding
For these 44 colleges, the substantially higher acceptance rates compared to the 61 highly selective colleges suggest that they cannot afford to be as demanding in their admissions requirements. Applicants do not need to be “superstars” in one unique thing to gain admission to one of these 44 colleges. The pressure on applicants to demonstrate high achievement and excellence in multiple areas, like academics, activities, essay and recommendations is less.
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