Columbia+Cornell+Wisconsin Astro acceptance rates

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InquilineKea
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Joined: Sun Mar 21, 2010 9:07 pm

Columbia+Cornell+Wisconsin Astro acceptance rates

Post by InquilineKea » Fri Jan 14, 2011 4:27 am

Does anyone know if they suddenly decreased the number of spots they take last year?

I know that Cornell definitely did - it only took 3 people last year. But what about Columbia and Wisconsin? One guy at Physics Forums told me that Columbia only accepted 5 people last year. This was quite shocking to me, since Columbia has always traditionally accepted an unusually high number of people (for a grad program of its calibre) - its admission statistics for the last 10 years are on its website, although it might have taken them down recently. I know that a lot of people do confuse the number of people they take with the number of people who enter (since the graduate student handbook often confuses those numbers too).

And if so, why? Is this common among astronomy departments due to the recession? Did the recession hit the "less practical" fields harder than, say, the "more practical" fields?

ultraballer2000
Posts: 59
Joined: Mon Nov 02, 2009 4:51 pm

Re: Columbia+Cornell+Wisconsin Astro acceptance rates

Post by ultraballer2000 » Fri Jan 14, 2011 8:44 am

There's a difference between acceptance rates and the number of students actually enrolling in the program. Most students accepted to these programs also applied (and were accepted) to places like harvard, caltech, and santa cruz. The admissions process is a tricky thing so sometimes you get 3 new students and sometimes you get 10. I don't think it has much to do with the recession.



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