Mon 17 Apr 2006
Can this be true?
As of 2005, williams stopped reporting the number of Black Americans who were accepted in proportion to the number who applied, so JBHE can’t deduce the separate acceptance rate for minorities. However, for the most recent year (2004) the acceptance rate for black americans was 49.8%.
Total Acceptance Rate: 19%
Black American AR: 49.8%
Really? Given that the source is College Confidential, I am doubtful. Note that African-Americans are less likely (at most elite colleges) to apply early decision, so the 50% acceptance rate is even more shocking than it first appears.
Can anyone confirm? I would also be curious to know about yield rates. If there are about 50 African-Americans in each class, and if the yield rate of 50% is the same, then there would be 100 accepted out of 200 applying. This seems implausible. If there are around five or 6 thousand applicants, this would put the percentage of African-Americans in the pool at 3%-4%.
4 Responses to “Acceptance Rates”
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http://www.jbhe.com/news_views/47_black-admissions_colleges.html
No clue how accurate this is…
The linked article above claims that the acceptance rates for African-American applicants were 56.4, 60.3, and 49.8 for 1996, 1998, and 2004, respectively. This is the sixth-highest average among liberal arts colleges, behind Middlebury, Macalester, Carleton, Oberlin, and Bowdoin. Amherst is #7, tied with Colby.
I’m sure those numbers are accurate. Swarthmore’s acceptance rate for African American students last year was 46%, more than double the overall rate.
However, David’s hypothesis about yield is way off the mark. The yield at all of these colleges among minority students is horribly low…half of the overall yield rates. For example, last year 12% of the accepted students at Swarthmore were African American, but only 7% of the enrolled class. Combine that with relatively low numbers of African American applicants to begin with and its easy to see why the acceptance rates are so high. If they weren’t, you’d be back to the days of white as the driven snow in Billsville.
Understand that qualified African American applicants are fought over by elite colleges. Any Af Am who gets into Williams will probably have multiple Ivy League athletic conference offers as well. And, multiple offers from “lesser” schools accompanied by massive merit aid deals.
Minor correction:
I meant to say that yield for Af Am students is half of the overall rate. Latino yield is a little higher, but still quite low. Asian American yield just slightly lower than White yield.
One of the reasons that affluent white applicants feel that college admissions is tougher is that they no longer have 100% of the slots at these schools. 39% of the admissions letters at Williams went to domestic students of color. Figure maybe another 7% for international and you are down to perhaps 54% of the slots for white US students. 52% of Swarthmore’s admissions letters went to domestic students of color. Figuring internationals, that means that as few as 41% of the admissions letters went to white US citizens. That is not your father’s Oldsmobile.