<p>Stanford's admissions rate dropped from 7.2% last year to 7.1% for the class of 2015. Also, in this year's survey conducted by Princeton Review, Stanford is the #1 dream school in the country among students, and the #2 among parents of applicants.</p>
<p>Stanford did a strange thing this year. Instead of accepting the usual 2300 students to get 6.7% admit rate, they decided to accept 2427 students to have 7.1% admit rate., and hence to let Columbia to have lower admit rate. If Stanford get a similar yield rate: 71.5% this year, they would have to enroll 1732, instead of about 1673 students last year.</p>
<p>If they enroll 1673 students this year, their yield is about 69% without taking people from waitlist.</p>
<p>Interesting how they have admitted more this year. Maybe they believe that their yield will decrease for some odd reason? Maybe because of a looming earthquake?</p>
<p>^ that’s actually a really good point. I honestly would not be surprised to see people take the possibility of an earthquake into consideration, in the wake of Japan’s crisis. I read Stanford’s # applications and probably its yield went down right after the 1989 earthquake.</p>
<p>I think the reason they accepted more is that last year’s class of 1673 is smaller than the classes before it, each just over 1,700. so perhaps they’re assuming their typical yield but just want a slightly larger class. Then again, there’s been controversy on campus about Stanford having to convert a small handful of graduate housing units in Rains for undergraduates (can’t believe there’s still a housing crunch–I mean, the nearly-400 unit Crothers was supposed to fix that. Then again, they did “un-stuff” a bunch of other dorms on campus to make them “roomier” for students). So I can’t see how Stanford justifies a slightly larger class until it can get housing completely sorted out. Maybe they have–the admissions office gets its target class size from higher-ups.</p>
<p>Let’s just hope that Stanford’s yield isn’t any higher than it was last year–if it’s 72% (the record high last year(?)), that’s 1750, which is larger than any of the classes Stanford’s been having. But since they accepted more initially rather than waitlist them, I think the admissions office is confident in a slightly lower yield. Who knows?</p>
<p>I was reading the Stanford Daily today, and one article states that apparently one of the reasons for the higher number of admits was an increased number of housing/classroom spaces.</p>
<p>Seems that they want to add 50 more students this year: 1673+50=1723. Then the projected yield is about 71%, which is about right. We will see.</p>