I am interested in what the acceptance rates for schools were this year. If you have that information (as part of your acceptance info or by other means) please post.
Thacher: 9-10% acceptance rate overall, 80% yield (@ThacherParent can confirm)
Before we go too far down this road, I would like some clarification. Based on prior posts, I thought we didn’t like talking stats and prestige here. There are other great websites out there for this information. Niche, BoardingschoolReview, etc.
There’s a whole thread specifically for stats, so I think that boat has sailed.
Andover- 12%
Exeter- 15%
@doschicos – that thread is the annual sanctioned thing about what kids got in where and their own personal stats – not a school’s. Not the same thing at all.
Don’t get me wrong – I am an equal opportunity data gal. The more the better. But I see people shouted down here all the time for either posting or asking about data linked to “prestige”. Is there a rule about it, or isn’t there? Or does it depend upon who is posting?
Sorry, maybe I am just extra cranky right now, or maybe I likes me some consistent guidelines. I am tired of not knowing what is going to get blow back. I have sat back for a very long time watching this dynamic here. I have only recently dipped my toe in. Who wants to spend time defending themselves (let alone others) against total strangers?
This board would benefit from more, different voices and questions. And yes, IMHO even data on prestige if someone wants to talk about it. If it is ok on this thread, awesome. But then can we all agree to cut people slack when it comes up in other forms?
No rule I’ve ever seen. Please feel free to post and please don’t let any blow back bother you, @CateCAParent.
Personally, I don’t think talking about acceptance rates is a bad thing. It’s kind of important to know so future applicants can have realistic expectations.
@CateCAParent - I’m not sure anyone is equating acceptance rates with prestige? If they were, then Andover and Exeter wouldn’t be considered the most prestigious?
@CaliMex - I don’t think I am going too far out on a limb here to say lots of people use acceptance rates/yield as THE proxy for prestige - for colleges and boarding schools and kindergarten and everything else for which people apply.
People use it more than endowments, that’s for sure. I am still scratching my head on why that thread went so sideways.
Popularity = prestige for many. That’s the power of cliques. It is human nature.
Let me ask you this: do you think anyone who loves a school with a low acceptance rate will post the low acceptance rate on this thread?
@CalMex, to answer your question, Thacher is definitely one of the most prestigious schools. And has one of the lowest acceptance rates to show for it. And yes, people apply to Thacher because of its perceived prestige, whether or not it is a good fit for them. Ergo the low acceptance rate.
Is there a one-to-one correlation of perceived prestige and acceptance rate/yield? Of course not. School size plays a role in acceptance rates, too, along with other things. Thacher is a very small school compared to Andover/Exeter. Size will skew the metrics.
Deerfield 10%, Taft 14%, St. Paul’s about 12%. A couple of schools I applied to didn’t offer specific numbers but told me they received the most applications in their history. Seems to be the story with many of the Top 25-30 schools this year.
When sharing these numbers, it would be helpful to provide the source.
My specific numbers came from the school directly.
On Taft’s admission letter, it says that there are 180 open seats for nearly 1800 applications. Since they have a 14% acceptance rate and assuming this data is correct, can I conclude that they expected about 70% yield?
Some of the figures above do not account for yield.
Deerfield: Fall 2019 acceptance rate is about 16% (200 spots / 1980 applications / 65% yield (estimated yield)). (Spots and applications sourced directly from the school).
SPS: 12% spots to apps / 70% yield (estimated) = 17% estimated acceptance rate. If yield was 75%, it’s about a 16% acceptance rate
Taft: historically about a 20% acceptance rate and a 50% yield. 180/1800/50% = 20% estimated acceptance rate.
Low acceptance rates do not tell the whole story as everyone knows. Exeter has a higher acceptance rate than Thacher (15% vs 12%) yet a higher SSAT average (8% higher) and higher SAT grad class scores - about 100 points higher (1470 vs. 1371). (If I lived in Cali, would have applied to Thacher and Cate).
Size skews the metrics. So does geography. California is populous, and doesn’t have anywhere near the concentration of boarding schools New England has.
Thacher was 11% with an 84% yield. I get less excited by acceptance rates than I do by yield anyway. I agree with @Boarding2019 that size and geography skew the metrics. I’ve never really figured out how to think about California vs New England. I like yield the most because, rightly or wrongly, I’ve always thought that it reflects whether the admission’s team is doing a good job of matching. If your kid is gifted enough to be looking at top 25 schools, and you’re a good parent, then you should be laser focused on fit and not whether one school has a 10% admit rate and another has 15%. At least that’s how I’ve always thought about it.
It’s not surprising that Thacher has a high yield but not sure if it can all be attributed to the admission team’s success at matching. Thacher’s location in CA gives it an advantage because it has a lot less competition geographically than east coast schools.
That’s what I struggle with because California does not, by any stretch, have the same “boarding school inclined” population as New England. Anyway, you may be right @doschicos. I just don’t know. When the ISGP and other independent groups poll Thacher student’s about their level of happiness etc, I’ve ascribed the great results to savvy admission’s team matching, knowing the kinds of kids who will thrive, and thrive happily. But maybe it’s just the weather! LOL.
@Boarding2019 nailed it! If you look at the SPS brochures from last year they said their acceptance rate was 16.8% considering that they had around 100 less applications this year I would assume they would either have the same or a slightly higher acceptance rate. In terms of CA boarding schools, the options that can be perceived to be in the same “tier” as Andover, Exeter, Choate, DA, etc. is really only Thacher and Cate, while there are other BS such as Webb, Athenian, Stevenson, etc. none are in the same category as the first or even the 2nd tier of NE boarding schools.
It is probably also true that there are far fewer CA families willing to even consider boarding school.
The high yield may also reflect the high proportion of legacies, siblings, and faculty kids? At Thacher, it feels as if there are very few freshmen without a family connection of some sort.