Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:What are possible explanations for the William and Mary change?[/quote]
William & Mary is a state school. You can't compare it to the selectivity ratings of privates and SLACs. Go back to the list and see how many state schools are on that list. State schools cater primarily to their state where top students are funneled in by their public schools according to fit. Ergo the student applications are preselected by the funneling high schools.
Would also add that William & Mary is one of the very few, if not only, liberal arts colleges on the list. I've seen that more and more students - especially boys - just aren't interested in liberal arts schools. They want bigger universities. So I'd be interested to see a similar chart that includes a range of liberal arts schools - not just the Amherst/Williams/Swarthmore/Pomona tier, but a similar range of 50 schools.
Well, W&M is probably pretty similar in undergraduate enrollment to Brown, Princeton, Dartmouth, Wake, Tufts, Emory, Lehigh, Rensselaer, Rochester, Wash U, and Case Western on that list. In contrast, though, all of those are private. A number are also in or nearer significantly larger metro areas and some like Lehigh and Rensselaer are certainly more technical in orientation. W&M is perhaps most similar to Wake, Tufts, Dartmouth, and Brown as a school. They have all lowered acceptance rates significantly. Dartmouth and Brown are Ivies, of course, and Tufts is in the Boston area. Wake perhaps has the ACC appeal. It could be that 1) the "hot school" dynamic favors privates 2) "hot school" dynamics favor more urban, larger, more technical schools or 3) W&M hasn't executed well on tactics to increase applications.
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