Crazy to see the impact our meteoric rise in sports has caused on applications to the school. I’ll link below as I don’t know how to embed photos. Getting much more competitive to get in. I’m not sure high school me would be accepted today. The number of applications by year though are as follows:

2021 - 22,603
2022 - 32,252
2023 - 37,613
2024 - 40,233

Since 2021, we have had a 78% increase in applications to the university

https://www.jmu.edu/news/2024/01/23-admi...to%202021.

(01-23-2024 08:26 PM)James Madison Wrote:  Crazy to see the impact our meteoric rise in sports has caused on applications to the school. I’ll link below as I don’t know how to embed photos. Getting much more competitive to get in. I’m not sure high school me would be accepted today. The number of applications by year though are as follows:

2021 - 22,603
2022 - 32,252
2023 - 37,613
2024 - 40,233

Since 2021, we have had a 78% increase in applications to the university

https://www.jmu.edu/news/2024/01/23-admi...to%202021.

what year did we join the common application? I think that is a good part of it, although the continued rise can largely be attributed to brand recognition that came from amongst other things: 1) sports (namely football) success 2) acheiving R2 status and thus being able to 3) moving into National University rankings in the USNWR

(01-23-2024 09:12 PM)JMaddy Wrote:  

(01-23-2024 08:26 PM)James Madison Wrote:  Crazy to see the impact our meteoric rise in sports has caused on applications to the school. I’ll link below as I don’t know how to embed photos. Getting much more competitive to get in. I’m not sure high school me would be accepted today. The number of applications by year though are as follows:

2021 - 22,603
2022 - 32,252
2023 - 37,613
2024 - 40,233

Since 2021, we have had a 78% increase in applications to the university

https://www.jmu.edu/news/2024/01/23-admi...to%202021.

what year did we join the common application? I think that is a good part of it, although the continued rise can largely be attributed to brand recognition that came from amongst other things: 1) sports (namely football) success 2) acheiving R2 status and thus being able to 3) moving into National University rankings in the USNWR

I think you picked it - 2021. With a spike over 2020.

https://www.jmu.edu/news/2022/01/14-earl...cord.shtml

(01-23-2024 09:24 PM)JMU_Rocks! Wrote:  

(01-23-2024 09:12 PM)JMaddy Wrote:  

(01-23-2024 08:26 PM)James Madison Wrote:  Crazy to see the impact our meteoric rise in sports has caused on applications to the school. I’ll link below as I don’t know how to embed photos. Getting much more competitive to get in. I’m not sure high school me would be accepted today. The number of applications by year though are as follows:

2021 - 22,603
2022 - 32,252
2023 - 37,613
2024 - 40,233

Since 2021, we have had a 78% increase in applications to the university

https://www.jmu.edu/news/2024/01/23-admi...to%202021.

what year did we join the common application? I think that is a good part of it, although the continued rise can largely be attributed to brand recognition that came from amongst other things: 1) sports (namely football) success 2) acheiving R2 status and thus being able to 3) moving into National University rankings in the USNWR

I think you picked it - 2021. With a spike over 2020.

https://www.jmu.edu/news/2022/01/14-earl...cord.shtml

Good find so in 2020 applications were 13,190. Big bump after joining Common App. And then since the initial common app bump it has jumped nearly 100% again

And this is why the JMU acceptance rate is high and yield rate low.

(01-23-2024 10:02 PM)JMU Wrote:  And this is why the JMU acceptance rate is high and yield rate low.

You are incorrect as our acceptance rate is coming down, not going up with increased applications. This should allow the s to be more selective as we have more applicants to choose from and therefore we can accept less overall to complete our class each year. It is my understanding that we ended up way oversubscribed this year which should allow us to be even more selective going forward. As we become more selective that will help increase our rating and therefore allow us to be even more selective. Will we ever get back to the early 90s where we had 30% acceptance rate? Not likely but an acceptance rate in the 50s will help our profile dramatically.

From Admissions site:
Admitted Freshmen (2022-23)
Applications: 37,055
Applicants accepted: 27,238
Applicants enrolled: 4,750

So if we accept 27,238 of 40,233 then that’s 67.7%. That’d be a much better number to see on Google than the current 86.3%.

This is a total result of the common app which along with making SAT/ACT optional.

I don't think either is a good thing to be honest as now we have a lot of folks simply apply with the click of a mouse that have no intention of actually going to JMU.

IMO this leads to very misleading numbers/statistics for HS students really interested in JMU vs a larger number just b/c it takes zero effort with no real interest in JMU.

You can get the official stats from SCHEV here: https://research.schev.edu/enrollment/B8_Report_new.ASP

(01-23-2024 11:01 PM)jmu98 Wrote:  

(01-23-2024 10:02 PM)JMU Wrote:  And this is why the JMU acceptance rate is high and yield rate low.

You are incorrect as our acceptance rate is coming down, not going up with increased applications. This should allow the s to be more selective as we have more applicants to choose from and therefore we can accept less overall to complete our class each year. It is my understanding that we ended up way oversubscribed this year which should allow us to be even more selective going forward. As we become more selective that will help increase our rating and therefore allow us to be even more selective. Will we ever get back to the early 90s where we had 30% acceptance rate? Not likely but an acceptance rate in the 50s will help our profile dramatically.

+1 on this comment. Very confused as to how JMU (the poster, thankfully not the school) thinks this is the way math works.

It is wild they got rid of the SAT requirement. SAT is highly correlated to IQ (~88%) Grades from different schools around the country are highly variable and are a big moving target for academic suitability. Motivation, social skills and intangibles are more difficult to quantify but are evident from other things like extra curriculars and job experience.

I guess we will see if it effects graduation rates, or if it generally just dumbs down the standards for graduation. Id imagine its pretty hard to quantify the second.

(01-24-2024 09:02 AM)ShadyP Wrote:  This is a total result of the common app which along with making SAT/ACT optional.

I don't think either is a good thing to be honest as now we have a lot of folks simply apply with the click of a mouse that have no intention of actually going to JMU.

IMO this leads to very misleading numbers/statistics for HS students really interested in JMU vs a larger number just b/c it takes zero effort with no real interest in JMU.

I don't disagree with the sentiment, but with the way they do admissions and look at how the student interacts via touches with the school on social media, etc. it is very easy to weed out the folks that have no intention of attending JMU. The amount of info they have on students who apply is quite great from my understanding. The increase certainly is related to the common app, but you need to play the game as far as ratings go and not using the common app puts you at a huge disadvantage against schools in our stratosphere academically.

Our admissions will slowly dial in more and more on who is likely to attend and our acceptance rate will continue to go down and my guess is it settles in the 55-60% range. The other thing the common app does it has more people applying who are easily weeded out as not having the chops but now applied via common app as a hope and a prayer. While this creates a bit more work for admissions it will help our overall acceptance rate go down. This is one of the ways that FSU has raised its profile so much over the last number years as there increase in applications has been astronomical and they have been able to be very selective. There are many other reasons related to population changes, etc. but increased apps with not much movement in incoming class sizes has seen them go from a ridiculously easy school to get into to a top 20 public institution in the country. Has the school really gotten better? Who knows but the student profile certainly has.

(01-24-2024 09:21 AM)Centdukesfan Wrote:  It is wild they got rid of the SAT requirement. SAT is highly correlated to IQ (~88%) Grades from different schools around the country are highly variable and are a big moving target for academic suitability. Motivation, social skills and intangibles are more difficult to quantify but are evident from other things like extra curriculars and job experience.

I guess we will see if it effects graduation rates, or if it generally just dumbs down the standards for graduation. Id imagine its pretty hard to quantify the second.

I tend to agree that it is harder for schools to distinguish between groups of students without standardized testing scores, but there are other ways to do so. Schools use it both ways as well as some schools are more likely to accept a student with high test scores who underachieved while others look for the opposite. I think the other thing to note is that schools have tons of information about all high schools around the country and can differentiate fairly easily a 3.5 at one school vs. another.

The other thing to note is that over the years the value of the SAT has become less as more and more students have taken prep courses that teach you how to maximize your scores on the tests vs. actually learning something. While the mean and median scores have not changed all that much at the higher end the scores have risen to a level that shows the affect of the above.

(01-24-2024 09:21 AM)Centdukesfan Wrote:  It is wild they got rid of the SAT requirement. SAT is highly correlated to IQ (~88%) Grades from different schools around the country are highly variable and are a big moving target for academic suitability. Motivation, social skills and intangibles are more difficult to quantify but are evident from other things like extra curriculars and job experience.

I guess we will see if it effects graduation rates, or if it generally just dumbs down the standards for graduation. Id imagine its pretty hard to quantify the second.

we all know why they have deemphasized the SAT. Some of it is legitimate. Resources improve your SAT score, no doubt about it. but the same could be said for a lot of things

back to acceptance rates -

- we were oversubscribed last year
- our yield will be even better this year
- given that, lets assume we accept less, while having more applicants

25,500(?) accepted out of 40,233 leads us to a 63% acceptance rate

- yield rate is key. higher yield - lower the acceptance rate
- yes, athletics helps, Clemson, USoCarolina, Tenn, Alabama have all become difficult to get into - that is a different stratosphere, but we are getting there.
- here is where we are - students are not picking JMU because of athletics, but they are not crossing JMU of the list because of athletics

this is all happening at a good time as there is the coming college age students cliff.

(01-24-2024 09:21 AM)Centdukesfan Wrote:  It is wild they got rid of the SAT requirement. SAT is highly correlated to IQ (~88%) Grades from different schools around the country are highly variable and are a big moving target for academic suitability. Motivation, social skills and intangibles are more difficult to quantify but are evident from other things like extra curriculars and job experience.

I guess we will see if it effects graduation rates, or if it generally just dumbs down the standards for graduation. Id imagine its pretty hard to quantify the second.

Grammar Police is disappointed in you, Centdukesfan. You were looking for "affects" here. Grammar Police chuckles in light of the SAT subject matter.

Please revise and resubmit.

(01-24-2024 09:49 AM)Grammar Police Wrote:  

(01-24-2024 09:21 AM)Centdukesfan Wrote:  It is wild they got rid of the SAT requirement. SAT is highly correlated to IQ (~88%) Grades from different schools around the country are highly variable and are a big moving target for academic suitability. Motivation, social skills and intangibles are more difficult to quantify but are evident from other things like extra curriculars and job experience.

I guess we will see if it effects graduation rates, or if it generally just dumbs down the standards for graduation. Id imagine its pretty hard to quantify the second.

Grammar Police is disappointed in you, Centdukesfan. You were looking for "affects" here. Grammar Police chuckles in light of the SAT subject matter.

Please revise and resubmit.

I saw that and thought it was funny, but then notice I use there vs. their wrong in my response.

(01-24-2024 09:52 AM)jmu98 Wrote:  I saw that and thought it was funny, but then notice I use there vs. their wrong in my response.

Grammar Police has been known to celebrate self-reported errors. You might even get rep points.

Grammar Police didn't even point out the lack of an apostrophe in "Id".

mea culpa! Effect vs affect has always plagued my writing.

The argument that effort and resources increases SAT scores is kind of funny because they typically increase... well I'm sure they increase outcomes on everything measurable.

(01-24-2024 10:36 AM)JMad03 Wrote:  Grammar Police didn't even point out the lack of an apostrophe in "Id".

I was of course speaking about the unconscious instinctual component of personality that is present at birth. JK i forgot an apostrophe.