Everyone’s favorite dream school has gotten more competitive. Gone are the days of being a Violet (or a Bobcat or whatever their mascot is) as second-choice to Ivy League dreams. NYU’s acceptance rates have more than halved in the last ten years. HALVED!! In 2013, NYU had a 35% acceptance rate, which went down to 28% in 2017, down again to 19% in 2018, and finally for this last admissions cycle they’re down to 12.2%. And if we follow this math, it’s only going to get harder and harder to stand out amongst the piles of applicants.
On top of making sure you have great grades, excellent extracurriculars, stellar scores, and an all-around amazing application, you’re also going to want to take advantage of demonstrated interest. Unlike the other not-so-safety choice of yesterday, USC, NYU does track demonstrated interest, and it’s listed as a “considered” factor in the admissions process. Now you might be wondering, “Well, what is demonstrated interest?” That’s a great question and also exactly the title of our next section.
What is demonstrated interest?
Long story short, colleges care about how much money you could potentially make them. One of the ways they calculate this is by maximizing their yield rate, which is the amount of students they admit that will actually enroll. One of the best ways to predict a yield rate is by seeing which students have engaged with the school the most, or shown a lot of excitement about the school. One might say they demonstrated some amount of interest. See what we did there?
Basically, demonstrated interest is the tally of all the things you could have done to show a college that you’re in it to win it, even before ever submitting an application. The biggest one? Applying Early Decision. When you apply early, you’re basically promising the school that you’ll enroll, and therefore you’re good for their yield rate.
Other things you can do include in-person and virtual visits, applying to and participating in summer programs at the school, talking with your admissions officer, and attending college fairs and virtual info sessions. College interviews can help, and there’s even whispers that following the school on social media could help too.
One of the best things about your quest to prove demonstrated interest to NYU is that you’ll actually learn a ton about the school in your research. And you might even realize that you’re not as pumped as you thought you were, or maybe you’re even more excited!! This process is essentially already all the things you should be doing to research and learn and explore potential schools.
Demonstrated interest does have some downsides. We don’t love that schools track this, because frankly many students don’t have the means or ability to travel cross country to tour a campus, or maybe don’t have access to computers outside of school hours for info sessions, or don’t go to a school that hosts the top colleges at college fairs.
So what do I do now?
Since NYU tracks demonstrated interest, it’s time to start demonstrating all that interest. Go on a tour if you can swing it, sign up for info sessions, email questions to your admissions officer. NYU also offers a ton of different summer programs too, so see if your desired major is on the list and apply! You’re going to learn a ton about NYU during this process and you’ll be able to prove to them that you’re passionate about them at the same time.
If you are having a rough time with your college list, or don’t even know where to start when it comes to the application process, we have a team of counselors who are experts in this field.
Reach out to us today if you want to get started.