And the ‘Most Popular’ colleges are …
March 19, 2010 by Geneva ReidPosted in: Admissions & Financial Aid, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views
If students could attend any college they wanted, which would they choose? The latest list of ‘Most Popular Schools’ has the answer. To determine a school’s popularity, this U.S. News & World Report survey looked at the percentage of students who were accepted into a school — and how many went on to enroll there. (In other words, its ‘yield.’)
Take a look at the top 20 liberal arts colleges, followed by their yield:
- United States Naval Academy (MD): 83%
- United States Military Academy (NY): 79%
- Thomas Aquinas College (CA): 68%
- Virginia Military Institute (VA): 48%
- Barnard College (NY): 47%
- Calvin College (MI): 46%
- Wheaton College (IL): 45%
- Middlebury College (VT): 44%
- Bowdoin College (ME): 44%
- Davidson College (NC): 43%
- Washington and Lee University (VA): 42%
- Williams College (MA): 42%
- Wellesley College (MA): 41%
- St. Mary’s College (IN): 40%
- St. John’s University (MN): 40%
- Hillsdale College (MI): 40%
- Claremont McKenna College (CA): 40%
- Bucknell University (PA): 40%
- College of St. Benedict (MN): 40%
- Colorado College (CO): 40%
To view the complete list of schools – along with each college’s acceptance rate – click here.
Is there a college you think should be added to the list of most popular? Let us know in the comments section below.
HigherEdMorning delivers the latest HigherEd news once a week to the inboxes of over 200,000 HigherEd professionals.
Click here to sign up and start your FREE subscription to HigherEdMorning!
Loading ...
March 17th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
I think referring to USNA and USMA as “liberal arts colleges” is a bit misleading.
March 17th, 2010 at 5:51 pm
wow times are changing. I would not have ID’d USMA, Annapolis or VMI as liberal arts schools. I would also wonder how the “Congressional perk” appointments to the military academies are factored into the their admissions and yield data. Glad they put “most popular” in quotes, as I cannot imagine the top 5 in any poll of actual students.
March 19th, 2010 at 9:39 am
I don’t think this list indicates the most popular schools. I think it indicates segments of student populations that are most committed to the values of those schools. It is not a surprise that students who apply to military and religious schools will select those schools above others if accepted. Students who are likely to apply to those schools are also likely to be very committed to the values represented by those schools. If you want to know which schools are most popular, then determine which schools receive the most applications.
March 25th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
I didn’t see Harvard or Notre Dame. Did I just miss them? Have they really fallen so far they didn’t even make the list?
April 21st, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Aren’t all these polls misleading anyway? And how do we define “popularity”?