English Literature Acceptance Rates - March 2015 Update

[hypervodka]

Below is all of the data that we've been able to collect about acceptance rates at English programs this season. The document is still open, so please post any additional information you've been able to uncover.

 

Please note that, sometimes, there's a slight difference between a university's acceptance rate and their matriculation rate. UVA's acceptance rate is around 11.66%, but they have a target class of about 12, so their matriculation rate is about half of their acceptance rate. A lot of schools, like UCLA, for example, post their matriculation rate on their website rather than their acceptance rate, which makes the program look slightly more competitive. (Other schools, like Emory and USCalifornia, admit only as many students as they expect to enroll.)

 

In past years, Columbia has had upwards of 700 applicants; this year, the university had 543. For that reason, I think some other universities that historically receive a large number of applicants (Berkeley, U of Michigan, UT-Austin, Harvard, UCLA, Yale, NYU) have also experienced similar downturns this year.

 

In general, English literature programs are pretty competitive, with very few programs accepting more that 15% of applicants.

 

University: accepted/matriculated, applied, acceptance rate/matriculation rate

 

U of Toronto: 18, 125, 14.40%

UC-Berkeley: ~20, ~400, 5.00%

Harvard U: 10**, 300**, 3.33%

Columbia U: 19, 543, 3.50%

Yale U: ~14, ~300, 4.67%

Cornell U: 11, unknown, unknown

Duke U: 15*, 309*, 4.85%

UCLA: 20, 350**, 5.71%

UVA: 26, 223, 11.66%

U of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 12, 408*, 2.94%

UNC-Chapel Hill: 15, 266, 5.64%

UT-Austin: 41, 357, 11.48%

UW-Madison: unknown, unknown, 12%

CUNY Graduate School and University Center: 21, 197, 10.66%

UC-Irvine: 10, unknown, unknown

Emory U: 7, 170, 4.12%

OSU: 20, unknown, unknown

Vanderbilt U: 12, 350, 3.43%

U of Maryland-College Park: 9, 200, 4.50%

Rice U: 8, 120, 6.66%

U of Southern California: 8, unknown, unknown

Tufts U: 8, 120, 6.67%

U of Minnesota, Twin Cities: 12, 135, 8.89%

Boston U: 5, 200, 2.50%

U of Colorado-Boulder: 4, 200, 2.00%

Boston College: 5, unknown, unknown

Texas A&M U: 12, unknown, unknown

George Washington U: 3, 63, 4.76%

Michigan State U: 20, 61, 32.79%

Syracuse U: 4, unknown, unknown

UCONN: 15, unknown, unknown

U of South Carolina: 10, 100, 10.00%

Texas Tech U: 5, unknown, unknown

 

*:recent application cycle, **: from website

[goldfinch1880]

you are amazing!

[ProfLorax]

Seeing these numbers really stresses the fact there are no "back up" schools. Thanks for putting this together, hypervodka! 

[greenmt]

This is very impressive.  Thank you!

[silenus_thescribe]

It's worth noting that the UT Austin stats are 3 years old now; those numbers reflect the 2012 application cycle (see here). I don't know if it's gotten better or worse over the years; some comments I've seen in the various threads here suggest that it's getting worse. The university doesn't have any statistics on admission since 2012; why, I'm not sure. In fact, I wonder why some universities are hesitant to post statistics at all. 

 

Thanks for throwing all these numbers together! They paint a bleak if sobering picture.

Edited March 15, 2015 by silenus_thescribe

[greenmt]

My sense is that in most instances it's only gotten worse.  This is my second time around, and a couple of programs I applied to have said that they accepted fewer students than last year. Last year, another one told me that they'd cut back from 10 to 8, and seems to be staying at that level this year.

 

So, I googled Harvard last night because I wanted to confirm the year it was founded.  (1636, for the record.  Thoreau was an 1837 graduate, but - in what might be considered a shot across the bow to polite New England - refused to pay for his diploma.)  Anyway, according to this article, Harvard accepted "a record low" of 5.7% of applicants into its 2013 undergraduate class.  Seems it may have creeped up to 5.9% in 2014.  Yes, folks, getting into some PhD English programs - not even necessarily those in the top 20, or even the top 50 (I'm looking your way, BU), is harder than getting into Harvard.

 

For me, this is more reassuring than the opposite.  For a middle-aged, second-career-seeking guy, with a BA from a hippie-liberal-arts college, and an MA from a no-name city college (fill in your own "pretty damn unlikely" story here), to even get to the "we're thinking about it" stage must mean I'm / we're doing something right.  

[Warelin]

Bumping for awareness and curious to see if anyone has any more information based on this year's data

[HumanCylinder]

If I remember the conversation correctly, I believe that Utah had around 230 total PhD applicants, about 150 of which were for the creative writing track.  I think there were 14 students admitted, and only 4 of them were for the lit. track.  Again, I could be incorrectly remembering, so don't rely on that info as fact. 

[Little Earthquakes]

I edited CUNY with the info they gave me in the waitlist letter. Really helpful doc to have up!

[heliogabalus]

On 3/16/2015 at 5:41 PM, greenmt said:

 Yes, folks, getting into some PhD English programs - not even necessarily those in the top 20, or even the top 50 (I'm looking your way, BU), is harder than getting into Harvard.

I'm sure this is true, but the admissions rates only really tell you whether more or fewer people get in--it would only be harder to get in if the applicants that are getting accepted to Harvard are getting denied by BU.

[Warelin]

On 3/25/2016 at 2:21 PM, heliogabalus said:

I'm sure this is true, but the admissions rates only really tell you whether more or fewer people get in--it would only be harder to get in if the applicants that are getting accepted to Harvard are getting denied by BU.

I think that's an important distinction to make. The makeup of an applicant pool will differ per school. And we also know that some programs are stronger in certain fields even if they are ranked lower overall.

[klader]

I'm a.) an MA applicant and b.) in rhet/comp and don't have any exact acceptance rates (even though I tried to get them!), but the University of New Mexico mentioned in my acceptance letter that this year had an exceptionally competitive applicant pool, a professor at Miami University told me they accepted fewer students in my field than in the past (3 MA, 7 PhD) but that it *certainly* doesn't mean there were fewer applications, and the University of South Florida just told me it was very competitive (and from what I understand, they accepted 5 total with funding for comp/rhet - 3 MA, 2 PhD).

From what I've heard people report and from what I can glean, it really is getting worse, guys. So congratulations to those who got in and bon courage to those who are waiting/didn't get in. Things are just getting muckier all around, especially with some schools (*cough Purdue *cough) getting hit with some crazy funding complications, so it's really sometimes not you but them.

Edited March 26, 2016 by klader

[hello_kitty]

On 2016 මාර්තු 26 at 5:33 PM, klader said:

 

Its indeed getting tougher and tougher....I know that Purdue still couldnt send the Masters notifications because of funding issues...such a nice school! Too bad!

[Scarlet A+]

What Purdue funding issues are y'all referring to, if you don't mind me asking?