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We’ve just hit the mid-point of January and already colleges are reporting record numbers of applications for their early and regular decision rounds. On Wednesday, NYU announced that its applications for2020-2021 topped 100,000 for the first time in school history. As NYU points out, this represents 14 years of growth and a doubling of applications over that same time period. Hitting six figures is impressive for sure, since to date, only UCLA had surpassed that mark. But what stands out to us is that there were just 75,000 applications two years ago. That 25,000 increase over just two years will make NYU that much harder to get into this year, especially with such a large portion of their admits coming from its ED1 and ED2 rounds.
It’s not entirely clear what has made NYU such a popular choice for today’s college-seeking high school students, but even anecdotally, counselors and private advisors have known it to be hot, in a similar way to Vanderbilt University, whose apps have also risen steadily over the past few years. Being test-optional helps this year (but just about every top school will see an uptick from that decision). Perhaps it is because NYU feels elite, but still “attainable.” It may not have the prestige of Columbia University, but it's still in NYC and has a much nicer address. It’s also adept at getting its students jobs, something that more and more families consider as they approximate the return on their $350,000 investment.
Counselors and private advisors have known NYU to be hot, in a similar way to Vanderbilt University, whose apps have also risen steadily over the past few years.
What many families and students don’t understand about NYU, however, is that the acceptance rates vary quite a bit based on the program a student applies to. The Stern School of Business is notoriously hard to get into. For the class of 2023, it accepted less than 8% of its applicants, with admitted students having an average SAT score of 1492. As a whole that year, NYU accepted 16% of students last year with an average SAT score that was50 points lower than at Stern. If you extract the Stern application numbers from the rest of NYU, the admit rate gap grows a bit more to 8% vs. 18%. And although NYU does not publish the acceptance rate for its Liberal Studies program (which kids can apply to directly), it is known among insiders to be an easier entry into NYU, despite it being a program that many students are placed into even if they applied to some other school within NYU.
If NYU is one of your student’s dream schools, think carefully about how you strategize the school choice within NYU and theED1 and ED2 options. With its 100K plus applications, NYU is not getting any easier to get into!
