Prestigious Public Colleges Cut Acceptance Rates

A slew of elite public colleges are cutting their admission rates drastically, The Hill reports.

Some of the most prestigious public institutions are now floating in the 10% to 20% range.

For the University of California schools such as Berkeley and Los Angeles, the universities accepted only 9% to 11% of applicants for the Fall 2022 semester. At North Carolina and Virginia universities, admission rates dropped to 17% to 19%.

"It's a little like the Wild West in admissions these days, filled with uncertainty," said Caroline Fisk, an educational consultant in Cary, North Carolina.

Fisk has watched as the acceptance rates at the flagship North Carolina campus in Chapel Hill have fallen.

The Hill outlines in its analysis of 18 elite public universities the admission rate in 2022 was 31%. And in 2002, the acceptance rate was 52%.

According to the Washington Examiner, nationally, though, the average acceptance rate for all colleges ranked by the U.S. News and World Report indicates that the reported admissions rates were 70.1% last year. Among those schools, 25 schools had a 100% acceptance rate.

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