Last month, colleges and universities across the nation started seeing rising rates of early decision applications -- now, most of the candidates who submitted early applications have heard back, and statistics show that some selective schools continued to experience dramatic increases in application rates.
According to the New York Times -- which is in the process of compiling a comprehensive data set including percent change in early decision applications in 2010, amount of applications received, amount of students accepted and more -- Trinity University in Texas, Furman University and Lafayette College received 60, 59 and 56 percent more applications this year, respectively.
Thus far, Elon University in North Carolina has accepted the highest percentage of applicants with an 84 percent rate, followed by American University at 72 percent and Dickinson College at 69 percent. The colleges that accepted the lowest percentage of early applications include Stanford University, 13 percent; Georgetown University, 17 percent; and Dartmouth College (25 percent). Duke University accepted 29 percent of its early applicants, a record amount.
Notable for students applying regular decision is that some of the schools reported filling nearly half of the class of 2015 in the early round -- the University of Pennsylvania accepted 49 percent of incoming freshmen, John Hopkins University admitted 42 percent and Dartmouth 40 percent.
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An earlier draft of this article misstated Colby College's early decision acceptance rate. It is 55 percent.