[LordKeren]

The application process to many universities has been dramatically streamlined. It is in a students best interest to cast the widest net of applications for suitable schools— so naturally rates go down as the volume of applications per student is going up. It has also long been an open secret that universities are encouraging as many applicants as they can in order to reduce their acceptance rates to boost their prestige and rankings.

We need the actual data on university acceptance criteria itself (i.e. mandatory SAT score minimums) to truly assess the competitiveness of these schools over time. Raw % acceptance has become a diluted metric