where can I find acceptance rates of various departments?

[child of 2]

I'm not going to select my grad schools based on acceptance rates, but I still want to know.

On another forum (CC), I saw that CU-B accepted something like 40 out of 450 applicants for chemical engineering. They're not even in the top 10, but they have a <10% acceptance rate. That's very scary for me.

Where can I find these data? Do I have to contact the departments?

[hungryhungryhipster]

Well, as far as I can tell most schools; acceptance rates aren't nearly that low. For instance, the University of Toronto only gets a thousand or two applications per year, so if they accepted that few, there's no way they'd have as many students as they do.

Now, personally, if a school isn't even in the top 10, they don't really have any right to be that selective. Apply if you'd like, but if they're not even one of the top programs and they want to act like they are, then I say forget about them and apply to the actual top schools, which probably have higher acceptance rates than 10%.

Edited February 6, 2012 by hall1k

[Eigen]

This is in some ways discipline specific, but I'd say <10-20% is pretty average in the sciences, even at lower tier schools.

Most schools, however, it's going to be hard to find applications #s and acceptance rates without some inside information.

Edited February 7, 2012 by Eigen

[CarlieE]

someone from last year posted in the results survey that Cornell's anthro program had 150 applicants but only 7 spots... I can't verify if that's true... but, I have heard it IS competitive..

[wine in coffee cups]

A few schools do post department-level admissions data. I am aware of Duke, University of Minnesota, and University of Washington.

[Networc]

If you find a school that publishes their admissions data in a format similar to UNC-Chapel Hill, then you can actually compute the acceptance rate for US citizens vs. International applicants.

For instance, Computer Science in 2010:

Total Applied = 432, Total Accepted = 114 (Total Acceptance Rate = 26.39%)

Int'l Applied = 352, Int'l Accepted = 69 (Int'l Acceptance Rate = 19.6%)

Therefore:

US Citizens Applied = 80, US Citizens Accepted = 45 (US Citizen Acceptance Rate = 56.25%)

[child of 2]

U of M has a 26% admission rate for PhD in chem e?? that doesn't make sense.

why are these numbers all over the place???

[Eigen]

So much of it varies year to year. If a school has a couple of new hires, or someone wants to expand their lab, they might take in half again as many students as a normal year.

If a batch of students hasn't graduated, and there aren't many lab slots avaiable, it might be half the number of usual applicants.

[child of 2]

I don't think so...

you don't see a lot of places that hire new professors or expand their labs every couple of years. Also, why would there be a batch of students that stay longer at one given year, but not for other years? I just don't see that happening. Professors don't hire a batch of students, give them PhDs 5 years later, and then hire another batch. It's not the bakery.

[Eigen]

::shrugs:: think whatever you want, those comments were from experience and listening to our adcom talking about how variable the number of students can be.

[child of 2]

I'm not completely rejecting it, just taking it with a grain of salt

[CarlieE]

Also, why would there be a batch of students that stay longer at one given year, but not for other years? I just don't see that happening. Professors don't hire a batch of students, give them PhDs 5 years later, and then hire another batch. It's not the bakery.

Actually... I think that this is kind of the case in some places...

At the school I got into there was a tiny cohort one year, a MASSIVE one the next, and then a small-mid sized cohort in the 3rd year.

Also, some grad students don't follow the outlined program year-to-year plan ie. they took extra time for research, or whatever - with the permission of the program or are taking longer to write their thesis/dissertation and so they aren't graduating with their original cohort...

OR students also drop out of the PhD programs and so "slots" might open up for professors to take on more students in one year, but since the slot is filled, they take on less new students the following admission year.

These events mean that from year to year the admissions might vary because of what the professor can handle or wants to handle.

Timing can be everything...

[tt503]

Petersons.com will give you a ballpark estimate. However, it's skewed in a lot of ways (and sometimes, not up-to-date), particularly because the "admitted" number includes Master's candidates. So, one of the programs that I was thinking of applying to has a 46% acceptance rate (they just offer a lot of rejects unfunded Master's degrees, which skews the data), even though it is one of the most competitive programs and realistically only offer 3-4 spots out of 150+ applicants.

[child of 2]

4/150 = 2.6%

You're saying they managed to bloat a 2.6% up to a 46% acceptance rate? that's impressive. Which school is this?

-----

Also, I checked my current school's acceptance rate (Iowa State CBE - 15%). I don't get it. Do a lot of people simply get a storm of rejections in grad school admissions? Is it because people who can't find jobs decide they want to stay for more school? Why are these numbers so low?

I'm really scared now. I might not even get into my own school...

Edited February 13, 2012 by child of 2

[Andrewknudsen96]

For Computer Science, Information Science and Electrical Engineering

http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-admission-statistics-for-top-schools-in-computer-science-information-science-and-electrical-engineering