<p>minority, engineer, legacy, international numbers, financial aid, first generation numbers up, too. no move to SCEA in the cards.</p>
<p>The "jump" to a 69% yield rate is still well under the 74% rate of 3 years ago, and may settle near last year's level; when all is said and done. Apparently the RD yield rate is still not high enough to risk abandoning binding early decision for next year. Too bad.</p>
<p>last year's counterpart article (may 13, 2005) reported a 67.6% "initial" yield. so the rise this year is an appreciable one, in an apples-to-apples comparison. and with harvard not going to the waitlist this year (and thus not pulling away the inevitable couple princeton commits), i don't expect much "settling" to occur.</p>
<p>as for the ED insistence, what can i say? it's frustrating, if not infuriating. i guess the admissions office doesn't read this site, or at least it doesn't find our (largely similar) arguments convincing.</p>
<p>crunching the numbers, i come up with a 54.4% initial RD yield this year, up from last year's 52% (per your own crunching). i notice, however, that you're projecting a 52% yield rate again. how?</p>
<p>Well, reading the tea leaves seems to indicate that Ms. Rapelye expects a "melt" of around 19, so that the more or less "final" yield would be about the same as last year. Do you think I mistake her meaning?</p>
<p>"We expect about 19 students to defer admission over the summer due to unexpected changes of plans," Rapelye said.</p>
<p>defer, not decommit. even if she actually meant decommit, it's irrelevant. the apples-to-apples comparison of the two years' number summaries show the yield to be up, and meaningfully.</p>
<p>Well, I don't read it that way, but we'll have to just wait, won't we?</p>
<p>not really. the calculations can be done now and compared to calculations done last year. the melt can be assumed to remain the same, although it might in fact (as i argued) be lesser.</p>
<p>sounds like you refuse to acknowledge the apparent increase.</p>
<p>Byerly, I don't understand the need to contest Princeton's yield. Is a 2% gain in yield really that threatening to Harvard?</p>
<p>According to the 2005-6 CDS form, there were 1807 admits and 1229 matriculants last year.</p>
<p>Byerly: As scottie said, the number is up to 69.2% compared to 67.6 from last year at this time. Presumabaly, summer melt is roughly the same each year, so f.scottie is correct in assuming that the yield is unlikely to drop to last year's number.</p>
<p>Princeton and Harvard both experienced roughly the same increase in yield. The gap is neither closing nor increasing. Why are we quibbling about 19 students who may or may not be deferring/declining their admission at the last minute?</p>
<p>The yield rate almost always drops at every school between the number claimed in May and the number actually showing up in September.</p>
<p>Since "the numbers drop at almost every school," as you say, both Princeton's AND Harvard's would be likely to settle at lower figures by September.</p>
<p>yes. That is true. The yield rate reported in May is ALWAYS "preliminary."</p>
<p>So does that mean anyone is going to be admitted from the waitlist?</p>
<p>basically...no.</p>
<p>Well, PROBABLY no.</p>