This year, Skidmore has seen an increase in admissions applicants for the class of 2020. Currently, Skidmore has released both early decisions 1 and 2, and regular decision applicants should be hearing back in late March.
Unlike previous years, this year about 50 percent of the class of 2020 already knows their decision, as they were accepted via early decision. This is a significant increase from previous years when about 38 or 40 percent of the class were accepted early decision.
Skidmore is not alone in accepting nearly half their class through early decision. “Lots of selective and highly selective schools accept about 50% early,” said Vice President and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, Mary Lou Bates.
This year applications via early decision saw the biggest increase in its numbers, as they were up 30 percent. “This year the first choice kids were there and so we responded with accepting a number that will probably be about 50 percent of the class,” said Bates.
“Our overall applications are up 8 percent,” for total of nearly 9150 applications, said Bates. One reason Bates mentioned for the increase in application numbers is that Skidmore recently moved up in the US News and World Report. Currently Skidmore is ranked 38 for National Liberal Arts Colleges. “We also have seen an increase in international students and so that is another reason applications are up,” said Bates. This year 27 percent of the application pool is international, and last year 24 percent was international.
The increase in the percentage of the class accepted via early decision, and the overall higher application numbers means that Skidmore is accepting an overall lower acceptance rate than last year. “We predict that our acceptance rate will be about 30 percent this year,” said Bates. If admissions ends up needing to use their wait list they could end up having a slightly higher acceptance rate “but we are projecting now that our acceptance race will be less than last year” Bates said. Last year the overall acceptance rate was 37 percent.
With an overall predicted acceptance rate of about 30 percent Skidmore is hoping to enroll a class of 655 to 700 students, including 35 to 40 London Freshman. The current first year class has 687 students, so it is right in line with this year’s target size.