<p>Dean Roberts was quoted in the press release as saying they were really guessing on how many people they needed to accept to fill the class, given the higher # of apps, the uncertainty of EA, as well as the national trend toward students applying at more colleges.</p>
<p>So, if I did the numbers right (not a sure thing since my D is the math wiz, not me), I get that they will accept approximately 7773 students after the RD acceptances are made (Dean R said that 3187 acceptances comprised 41% of what they expect to issue). I saw somewhere that the First Year class was going to grow by a 100 or so to something like 3350 maybe??? If so, then 3350/7773 is a 43% yield. Last year was 48.3%. What that means is that despite the number of apps increasing 18%, at least there was/will be) a corresponding increase in the number of offers. At last year's yield they would have only issued 6935 acceptances. That's 848 more offers this year than last year.</p>
<p>^^^ but not always. UVA had extended periods in both the 70s and 90s where yield went up even as apps did too. It must be very difficult to estimate and hence create quite a bit of pressure on AOs. What is worse, admitting too many students or too few? What’s the most “off” UVA has been since you’ve been there?</p>
<p>That is the advantage of the two tiered admissions system. If the yield for the early admissions is higher than expected, or skewed in state vs. out of state, it can be adjusted for the march decisions. </p>
<p>I would expect a high percentage of instate students would immediately accept admission, while many out of state students will wait until May 1 so that can compare merit and need aid offers from other schools. </p>
<p>(Some other colleges offer some incentives for students to accept admission early - such as preference in housing - so they have an easier time determing their yield.)</p>
<p>Also, remember UVa is gradually increasing enrollment each year in phases.</p>
Charlie - Help me out here…what am I missing. The true yield for EA won’t be known until after May 1 when decisions from students are due (and many DO take that long because they are waiting for FinAid info), so no adjustments could be made for the march RD based on this.</p>
<p>My child is IS, and goes to a large public school. In that school, all or almost all of the best students (who would normally be accepted to UVA based on data as recent as last year) applied Early Action. I’m betting that this is true in most public schools, and that the EA pool is much stronger than the RD pool. This makes intuitive sense, since the top kids are also going to be the most aggressive and “on top of” the application process.</p>
<p>Yet, the in-state acceptance rate for EA is almost identical to last years overall IS acceptance rate. This concerns me, because it suggests that people are being deferred who admissions knows will ultimately be accepted, so that the pools can (on the surface)be treated “equally.” If I am right, unnecessary angst will be caused for a bunch of students who will ultimately be accepted.</p>
<p>Dean J – do you have any sense of whether the IS EA pool is stronger, as I suggest, or is my child’s school an aberration?</p>
<p>DaddyNB- My kid’s school is the same way. In general, if you are in the top 30 of the class you get accepted. This year all those kids applied EA. I don’t know of a single kid who will apply to UVA that didn’t do it EA.</p>
<p>Blueiguana: Among the in-state students, most are not expecting need based aid anyway from UVa, except the lowest income ones. In many cases, UVa will be their least expensive high-quality choice (even if they get large amounts of aid from private colleges), and I’d expect many will be happy to accept the offer of admission right away. </p>
<p>In comparison, the accepted out of state students are more likely to need some need-based aid to cover a 37K or more tuition, and/or more likely to have applied to other colleges in other states that will offer them large amounts of merit aid. The out of state students are more likely to wait to decide.</p>
<p>There also will be some students for whom money is no object. </p>
<p>So, you are correct that many students will wait until May 1 to decide, but there still will be some indication of an interim yield.</p>
<p>DeanJ, at Duke application numbers have skyrocketed in the few years but the yield also seems to creeping up as well. If what you’re saying is true, then this must be an anomaly to the norm.</p>
<p>I think UVA’s yield should increase due to the reinstatement of EA by Harvard and Princeton. It’s very likely that those admitted early to these schools will no longer vying for college admissions in the regular decision which should boost the yield of a school like UVA in turn.</p>
I was thinking more along the lines of what determines an estimate since it can vary</p>