Most cannot make a decision by Dec / Jan. You’d need to ED or hit a school with rolling admissions. Some schools like UGA or U of SC announce earlier. But many are Feb or later. And many get waitlisted.
Case had 29k applicants. 8800 admitted. Here’s the game. More than 9700 offered WL of which 4900 took their spot and nearly 1100 were offered admission. A third of applicants waitlisted…and these kids feel ‘good enough’. It’s more like you are an insurance policy.
Btw yield and this includes ED. 1305/8804 or 15% for ‘20 - 21. So their big thing is to use the WL. While we don’t know how many ED there, their RD yield must be extremely low.
Now look at a school one notch above. Emory. Nearly 5400 acceptances of a bit over 28k applicants. Their waitlist. 5215. Still high. But half as large. 477 admitted. But still almost 1/5 waitlisted. I won’t tell my D. She felt good about it thinking she was close. Or my son at WUSTL. I never looked at the #s b4.
Their yield. 25%. Still not huge when you factor in a likely substantial ED. 5407 acceptances in 20/21 and 1344 enrollees.
I think these schools are masterful at marketing. But perhaps in many cases the results aren’t being backed up so perhaps the marketing isn’t that masterful ? They clearly tug at the emotions of kids tho.
But again if the average applies to 8 schools (just a guess), the avg yield would be 12.5%. So if you are ahead you’re doing well. Someone like my kids got into 13 and 17 so they’re killing the schools they didn’t attend.
I’m sure these schools are deep diving every nuance to ensure their campus is full, the federal research $$ flow in and the business operates efficiently. That’s what it is. A business.