How this calculator works
The acceptance rate divides the offers a school, program or employer made by the number of people who applied. Everyone who applied belongs in the denominator, including applicants who withdrew, because the rate describes how selective the intake was, not how many people enrolled. Because the three quantities are linked by one multiplication, any two of them fix the third, so the calculator swaps which field it solves for.
Formula
acceptance rate = applicants accepted / total number of applicants. Rearranged, applicants accepted = acceptance rate x total applicants and total applicants = applicants accepted / acceptance rate. The rate is a fraction: 0.25 displays as 25%.
Worked example
A program receives 1,200 applications and makes 300 offers, so the acceptance rate is 300 / 1,200 = 0.25, or 25%. Solving the other way, a school that wants a 20% acceptance rate with 240 offers needs 240 / 0.20 = 1,200 applicants.
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Frequently asked questions
Is the acceptance rate the same as the yield rate?
No. The acceptance rate is offers divided by applications. The yield rate is enrolments divided by offers, and it answers a different question about how many accepted students actually came.
Should waitlisted applicants count as accepted?
Only if they receive an offer through the waitlist. Counting a waitlist placement as an acceptance overstates the rate, because a waitlist is not an offer of admission.
Why does rounding appear in the accepted and applicant answers?
People come in whole units, so the two reverse directions round to the nearest person. The forward direction, the rate itself, keeps full precision.
Can the rate exceed 100%?
Not for a single intake. The calculator rejects a count of accepted applicants above the applicant total, which usually means the two fields were entered the wrong way round.