Stanford, Princeton, Penn & More Not Publicizing Admissions Data: What Now?

When talking to students about college admissions, they often look to admission statistics to compare their chances of admission. Yet, as the country’s most prestigious universities are becoming more selective, they have stopped publicizing their admissions data, including acceptance rates. So what can we look at?

Why Omit Data?

To understand what to do next, it is important to recognize why universities have started to do this in the first place. In 2018, Stanford announced a new policy shift to “de-emphasize the perceived importance of low admit rates at colleges and universities.” That was the same year that Stanford had the lowest admission rate in the country, at 4.3%. As the years have progressed, Cornell, Princeton, and Penn have announced that they will follow suit. The rationale is that they hope to find their perfect candidate in a more diverse pool of applicants.

The Alternative: Common Data Set (CDS)

The alternative to looking at a school’s published admissions data is to view their Common Data Set (CDS). Most accredited institutions release a CDS annually to digest college information in a standardized format. On the CDS website you can scan through years of admission statistics. Below is a snapshot of Stanford’s CDS for 2021-2022.

How to Digest the CDS

Using the picture above as reference, here is how to break these statistics down:

1. If you are a first-year applicant, the first thing you may be interested in is the first-year acceptance rates in Section C: First-Time, First Year Admissions.
2. C1 tells you how many students applied and were admitted and from there you can calculate the percent admitted. In this case, Stanford admitted 3.9% of its 55,471 first-time, first-year student applicant pool. Throughout the CDS you can also view the ethnic and racial backgrounds. For those who are international students, those statistics may be a great starting point for you as well.
3. C2 tells you how many students were admitted off of the waitlist. This section also tells you if the school ranks their waitlist.
4. In terms of seeing how institutions choose their applicants, C7 shows you how the school weighs different parts of your application. All items listed under Academic are weighed heavily for Stanford’s admission decisions.
5. From there you can view C9 to see the SAT and ACT score breakdowns. In this example, about half of admitted students scored between 1470 and 1560 on their SAT Composite exam, with 91% of its students scoring between 1400-1600. However, keep in mind that some students opted out of submitting their scores during the application process.
6. Other areas of interest are C21  and C22 for Early Decision and Early Action, D2 for acceptance rate for transfer students, H2 for financial aid, J1 for the most popular degrees and majors, and F1 for percentages of undergraduates in different categories ranging from nonresidents to sororities and fraternities.

Like every statistic, it is wise to take multiple factors into consideration. Stanford in particular has also included early decision, early action, and students they admitted off of the waitlist into their admission statistics. Most other universities submit their admission statistics before they admit students off of the waitlist. Further, COVID-19 has presented an unusual amount of deferrals in recent years, leading to some schools having higher admissions off of the waitlist. When looking at CDS we recommend students digest the most recent one given the events of the times.

Key Takeaways

• Prestigious institutions are choosing not to publicize admission statistics because they want to destigmatize their admission statistics.
• An alternative to college admission statistics is looking through the college’s CDS.
• The CDS will tell you the profile of current students with the C sections likely being of highest interest.