Luigi59
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Finally, via the Freedom Of Information Act, we see some real, believable, accurate application stats coming from Annapolis.
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2011/12/navy-professsor-says-academy-overstates-applicants-121011w/
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2011/12/navy-professsor-says-academy-overstates-applicants-121011w/
By Sam Fellman - Staff writer
Saturday Dec 10, 2011
The Naval Academy is artificially inflating its number of applicants to boost its status among other colleges, according to an academy professor who based his accusations on the school’s own documents.
Specifically, the academy counts as “applicants” people who have not completed an application but have shown an interest through other means, such as applying to the school’s weeklong Summer Seminar or beginning an online application, the documents show.
An academy admissions official Dec. 5 used this standard to boast that the school had 18,651 applicants so far this year, saying it put the school on track for a record year for the Class of 2016.
The academy’s number of completed applications is much lower. For example, the Class of 2015, which began training during the summer, had 5,720 completed applications; the academy cited its applicant number as 19,145 — more than three times the number of completed applications.
...The documents Fleming received from the academy show that the school’s total number of applicants includes every high schooler who applied to participate in Summer Seminar, regardless of whether the prospective student later completed an official academy application. It also includes high school juniors and seniors who initiated an application online, according to the documents.
An academy official said the practice of counting applicants this way has been in effect for at least 20 years.
The difference in the numbers is significant. By including Summer Seminar applicants — the event has about 2,250 participants a year — and people who never finished their online applications, the academy cited a 7.4 percent acceptance rate for the Class of 2015. That matches last year’s undergraduate acceptance rate at Princeton University. If those who didn’t complete an application are not included, the acceptance rate is closer to 25 percent.