<p>It's not that interesting. It does provide some tangible data on student choice, if you strip out ED, and also highlights schools that do a good job matching their admissions to students who will want to attend (e.g., Barnard, Notre Dame). Notre Dame's high yield -- I didn't know it did not have ED -- is an impressive testament to its connection with its applicants, and also perhaps a hint that admissions there is not strictly by-the-numbers.</p>
<p>xiggi,
I'm really intrigued by some of your earlier statements in this thread and I was wondering if you could expand on them. Specifically, while I agree that using yield as a reason to attend a college would be dumb, do you think maybe it is an updated indication of something like the Revealed Prefererence Study. Granted. there a lot of caveats to this (differences in early programs, financial aid issues, public vs private, etc.), but I do see yield as sometimes being indicative of a college's relative prestige value among matriculates. Do you see it at all this way or do you just completely ignore it when you look at colleges and how and why students choose a college?</p>
<p>JHS,
I think your point about low yields for most colleges is on target...and not well appreciated. The brand power of HYPS and perhaps M to a lesser degree is undeniable. But, after that group of colleges, and particularly after accounting for ED use by various colleges (most prominently U Penn and Columbia), the yields aren't that greatly different. And with the move by HP this year to eliminate early programs, the unpredictability of college admissions got racheted up a few notches and the enrollment management abilities of the colleges will certainly be tested.</p>
<p>A quick word on Notre Dame. IMO this is a hugely underrated college. Its students are terrific, its graduates are highly desired in the workforce, the classroom teaching has historically been considered among the nation's best and the non-classroom undergraduate experience ranks with Stanford, Duke, Northwestern and Vanderbilt as the very best available in the USNWR Top 20. Its midwestern location and religious aspects may not appeal to all, but it is certainly an exceptional college that is consistently underrated here on CC.</p>
<p>"if someone was to give up an acceptance from Duke or Cornell, they must have been accepted to somewhere that was probably better, in terms of prestige, aid, and everything else. Interesting..."</p>
<p>Cornell2012,</p>
<p>Don't forget about fit, fit, fit. My eldest declined Cornell (and other, more prestigious "name" schools) for a better undergraduate fit. Too much focus on yield, prestige, and name recognition can be counterproductive. One should choose a strong school that fits the best, rather than merely the strongest school to which an acceptance is obtained.</p>
<p>A quick note on Barnard and yield -- yeah, I think the admissions office does do a great job. Women who are obviously Columbia ED rejected students are often wait listed. And Barnard's application asks for essays very different than other schools where values are truly revealed. However, I also think that Barnard doesn't have any peer institutions. That doesn't mean that over half don't choose to go somewhere else (many to Columbia and NYU) but if a woman wants a liberal arts college affiliated with a research institution in an exciting city I don't think there are many other choices.</p>
<p>Barnard has it lucky that way. Once a woman decides to apply to a single sex institution she is a very good candidate for Barnard unless she is accepted at an Ivy or sometimes Vassar or NYU. It does not compete with peer liberal arts schools very much, not as much as other schools who pretty much offer the same thing in a different flavor like Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Wesleyan et al. This is not to say that Barnard is a better or more appealing school, just that it is a more unique school.</p>
<p>"if someone was to give up an acceptance from Duke or Cornell, they must have been accepted to somewhere that was probably better, in terms of prestige, aid, and everything else."</p>
<p>That is totally false.</p>
<p>yield is a very tainted statistic, deeply confounded by other factors
it is interesting, but you can't rank schools based off of the yield rate like you can with the admission rate or SAT scores.</p>
<p>John, admission rate is also tainted as a measure of selectivity. A hugely popular school could be attracting students who don't have a prayer of admissions & the admissions rate could appear very tiny. Another less popular school could actually have a more selective pool of high stat applicants, but a smaller one, thus resulting in a higher admissions rate.</p>
<p>
[quote]
but a high yield would indicate that most of the students attending had the college as their top choice.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>so why would this matter?Most kids, in looking back, are quite happy at even their LAST choice.</p>
<p>And, does someone 18 years old (or thier parents!) really know what is best? Does it really matter?</p>
<p>FWIW, I think we are waaay too stats obsessed when it comes to colleges. After all, colleges are not baseball teams, not baseball players. Each college is, in so many ways, unique. Why try to use such simplistic yardsticks to compare them?</p>
<p>Newmas, I already posted why this would matter. Guess you didn't read:
[quote]
I don't necessarily think you have to be obsessed with yield, but a high yield would indicate that most of the students attending had the college as their top choice. So they'd be likely to be more enthused, more aware of what awaits them, more likely to be a good fit. I think that the first weeks on campus would be more upbeat, as fewer kids would be still recovering from disappointment over dream school rejections. But it certainly wouldn't be on my top ten list for school choice criterion.
[/quote]
Hoping to attend college with other kids who WANT to be there is not simplistic. It's a rational, intelligent impulse. It has nothing to do with stats. </p>
<p>As long as you bring up baseball --- Would you agree that a happy, cohesive team is more likely to foster solid teamwork & unslefish attitudes? That in turn would lead to more wins & higher rankings?</p>
<p>SS, </p>
<p>More enthused? More aware? aware of what. Most of these kids know little about their first choices, other than that it is high in USNWR rankings. </p>
<p>Do you really think a kid who was rejected in April would still be mourning the fact in September? Have you talked to many kids after they enrolled at their "lesser" choices?</p>
<p>You also seem to presume that attending one's second (or last even) choice means they don't want to be there ("Hoping to attend college with other kids who WANT to be there is not simplistic.") Surely you are not serious that kids who don't attend their first choice are somehow going to some place they don't want to go?</p>
<p>Heck, SS. Believe what you want. At least I understand one view.</p>
<p>Baseball? many players have NO choice regarding with whom they play. does that mean most teams are not happy? not cohesive? No, because I think other factors play into these issues.</p>
<p>All the kids I know have researched their choices, most have visited them, & interviewed if applicable. </p>
<p>Just reading CC should show you that plenty of ADULTS are still upset about not attending their first choice college. So, absolutely, some kids who don't attend their first choice school are going to places they don't want to attend. Why do you think there is a transfer process that thousands of kids use every year? Most kids will adapt & learn to love the place where they wind up. But you're wearing rose colored glasses if you think that's an automatic process. It can take time, or sometimes never happen.</p>
<p>SS,</p>
<p>There is a big difference between not getting into your first choice (and maybe even remembering the experience 25 years later!) and going to a second choice "you don't want to attend" as you put it. </p>
<p>I hope you also realize that having a HS kid (or even many parents) research, visit and interview with a college is hardly the same as "knowing" the place.</p>
<p>Finally, I bet you the transfer rates are the same for kids that got into their first choice, second choice or last choice, perhaps with the exception of a few ultra-elite. </p>
<p>So I guess my rose colored glasses are making it hard to see some of the connections you see. does not matter. At least I see how you view the situation. Thank you for taking the time to clarify, even if we do not agree. :)</p>
<p>
[quote]
A high yield suggests that it is a first choice school for most students, which may have a positive effect on the student body i.e. I'm here because I want to be, not because I was rejected at the school(s) I really wanted to attend.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You cannot draw any such conclusions from the yield numbers. It is entirely possible that Caltech was the top choice of every student who enrolled there, while Nebraska was a safety for a large percentage of their students. The Caltech students undoubtedly had the option of attending a number of highly-ranked schools, while the Nebraska students probably did not. The numbers simply do not tell you anything.</p>
<p>"A high yield suggests that it is a first choice school for most students, which may have a positive effect on the student body i.e. I'm here because I want to be, not because I was rejected at the school(s) I really wanted to attend." </p>
<p>Yield is interesting but I wouldn't say it means the school was a first-choice. I think ED apps are more likely to reveal this. </p>
<p>Yield hints at prestige, at financial aid, at fit, at ED, even at legacy-- but it's hard to make a generalization that it means the same thing for all different schools.</p>
<p>A bit of an aside... We visited Amherst, a dream school for my dd, and spoke to a student there who told us she didn't want to attend but did after being rejected at her top 2 choices (lower-level ivies). One person's dream school could be another's safety and people can be sitting across the classroom for very different reasons.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Yield is interesting but I wouldn't say it means the school was a first-choice. I think ED apps are more likely to reveal this.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Right, as I said, it's entirely possible for a school to have a high yield simply because its students had no other choices. In fact, this is very likely the case for less-selective schools with high yields. When a school admits a lot of highly-qualified students who have a lot of choices, it's safer to assume it was the top choice of the ones who enrolled. </p>
<p>When you consider that the single best way to increase yield is probably to admit the least qualified students who apply (because they're unlikely to get in anywhere else), you realize how useless it is as a measure of anything.</p>
<p>Yield at Caltech does mean something. They lose kids to MIT. They don't spend the money on promoting acceptance and entertaining on Acceptance weekend. Caltech doesn't have the same name recognition. They don't practice any form of affirmative action, so everyone admitted is qualified. The only way they differ from some other colleges is that they offer a few merit scholarships to freshmen, and more to upperclassman.</p>
<p>Berea college is free to all. You don't have to pay tuition.</p>
<p>Brigham Young is a mormon school, most kids who go to BYU are mormon.Maybe they simply want to stay with other mormons.</p>
<p>"yield is a very tainted statistic, deeply confounded by other factors
it is interesting, but you can't rank schools based off of the yield rate like you can with the admission rate or SAT scores."</p>
<p>That seems to be the prevailing view in this forum, even though the ranking by US News purports to be a ranking of nothing other than percentage yields.</p>
<p>Some kids know where they want to go to school. It may be because of deeply held views regarding religion, military service, educational specialization or preceived financial or geographic limitations.</p>
<p>My son is planning to attend one of the high yield schools, which I won't name, and I am very pleased to think he will be attending with so many other young scholars who want very much to be there.</p>
<p>Don't worry if the schools your kids are applying to have low yield percentages. It's just a tainted meaningless statistic.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Yield at Caltech does mean something. They lose kids to MIT. They don't spend the money on promoting acceptance and entertaining on Acceptance weekend. Caltech doesn't have the same name recognition. They don't practice any form of affirmative action, so everyone admitted is qualified. The only way they differ from some other colleges is that they offer a few merit scholarships to freshmen, and more to upperclassman.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>So... what does the yield mean, then? They undoubtedly lose students to MIT, but MIT also undoubtedly loses students to Caltech. And since, as you mention, MIT has an AA program while Caltech does not, it's very likely that many of the students there didn't get into Caltech.</p>
<p>Maybe what Caltech provides is a sort of control group for what everyone's yield (except maybe HYPS) would be without affirmative action, ED, athletic recruiting, wholistic admission, etc.</p>