Acceptance Rates for Top National Universities

Applying to College
101

<p>
[quote]
how is that false? i've posted financial aid data, and a revealed preferences survey adjusting for financial costs, both of which support what i'm saying. you haven't posted anything.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Your statement that aid packages had nothing to do with losing the battle with cross-admits is false because ceteris paribus, people tend to prefer better financial aid packages. To be precise, I completed your data with a comparison of scholarship awards among the listed Ivies and UChicago. Except for UPenn, Chicago had the lowest "actual" financial aid among all of the listed schools. Let's face it, work study isn't really what I consider financial aid since you could probably get a part-time job anyways - it just makes getting a job easier, but so what? Loans aren't really financial aid since you'll eventually have to pay those off, but who wants to?</p>

<p>Here's a thought exercise though. If Chicago were to offer full-rides to all of its accepted students, then what would you expect its yield to be? Would you say that the financial aid packages still have NO effect on the matriculation preferences? Really? None at all? But yet, that is what you said.</p>

<p>
[quote]
just saying it doesn't make it true, the data clearly indicates otherwise.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Of course Chicago's aid is to blame. It's not the sole blame, but it is a problem nevertheless. Does it make sense to you that a less preferred school that aspires to the top of the rankings, offers less aid than its stronger competitors? Without a doubt, Chicago can win more of its cross-admits simply by offering more salivating aid packages. That was the simple point I've been trying to make.</p>

<p>
[quote]
no he didn't, he's splitting hairs with single points of data from a single school, whereas i posted aggregate data for all schools in the top 15 and the case was, clearly, that chicago was at the very least equal, if not moreso, in providing financial aid.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>UChicago has one of the lowest average scholarship aid packages out of all of the schools I've listed in question. However, it does have a larger average total aid package than all of the schools I've listed (except Harvard), which suggests to me that loans and work study make up a substantial portion of Chicago's average financial aid package. This is hardly auspicious elsijfdl!</p>

102

<p>
[quote]
And this loss of cross-admits is not due to financial concerns, but inherent desirability, ie exactly what i initially claimed and exactly what every single shred of data that has been posted here reaffirms.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The loss of cross-admits is due to a combination of several factors, including low preferences and weaker financial aid packages. The data absolutely supports the latter assertion.</p>

103

<p>your statement:
The study you cited is irrelevant. Of course, Chicago IS less desirable than other universities. But in your original statement, the main claim you made was that Chicago applicants weren't as interested in the school, and you used the yield rate to give evidence to this statement. </p>

<p>my statement:
In fact, Chicago has a relatively low yield, defying the "only interested applicants" argument. Their admissions rate is high because they lose a lot of cross-admit battles, likely with HYP, Columbia et al. </p>

<p>then you say:</p>

<p>
[quote]
These are saying exactly the same thing. I'm not 'misconstruing' anything. You must not know how to read.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>exactly, your argument and my argument were the exact same thing, we aren't disagreeing so what are you still arguing about???</p>

104

<p>the rest of your post makes no sense. of course we are talking about chicago applicants, you have to have applied to chicago to be included in the yield..................................................... i don't know how much longer i can keep responding to what you're saying</p>

105

<p>big brother i'll come back and respond to your posts later, i'm writing another paper tonight :o</p>

106

<p>"i don't know how much longer i can keep responding to what you're saying"</p>

<p>-Oh I promise you, he'll keep going.....</p>

107

<p>
[quote]
the rest of your post makes no sense. of course we are talking about chicago applicants, you have to have applied to chicago to be included in the yield

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Your main source of evidence was your little study, which doesn't take differences in applicants to different colleges into account. This is what I was referring to. The rest of your evidence is... well, non-existent, or in support of OUR argument. Unless you want to use the twisted collegeboard data you eventually used, which we eventually found out was in support of our argument. ^^;;</p>

108

<p>
[quote]
Your main source of evidence was your little study, which doesn't take differences in applicants to different colleges into account.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>first of all it was a secondary source of evidence. second of all, read the methodology, it absolutely does.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Unless you want to use the twisted collegeboard data you eventually used, which we eventually found out was in support of our argument. ^^;;

[/quote]
</p>

<p>what are you talking about? where did this happen? the only conclusion that could be drawn was financial aid was equal across all the schools, if not in chicago's favor</p>

<p>i can't take this anymore, think whatever you want, i can not argue with you for one single second, if you think you won, fine, think you won.</p>

<p>i really hope you are not on a pre-law track where you will be expected to actually compose logically sound and valid arguments, and draw reasonable and expounded conclusions.</p>

109

<p>elsijfdl, it seems to me that the study does take into account money factors.</p>

<p>Page 2:
Along with this central contribution, we show how to account for the potentially confounding effects of tuition discounts, financial aid, and other factors that might make a college "win" when it would lose on the basis of its intrinsic desirability.</p>

<p>I'm glad Dr. Avery agrees with me. But wait, there's more:</p>

<p>*D. College Characterististics that Vary Across Admittees</p>

<p>Some college characteristics vary across admittees: the tuition charged (as opposed to the "list price"), grants or scholarships, loans, the college's distance from the student's home, its being in-state, its being the alma mater of one or more of the student's parents, and so on. We add these and other individually-varying characteristics to the model because they should improve the model's explanatory power. </p>

<p>To understand this point, consider a college C whose list price is $20,000. It offers large tuition discounts of $15,000 a year to a few admittees and smaller discounts of $5,000 a year to a slightly larger number of admittees. Most admittees are offered the list price. Suppose that when college C is in a tournament with colleges A and B for an admittee who faces its $20,000 list price, it always loses to college A and loses to college B seventy percent of the time. Suppose, however, that when the admittee has the $15,000 discount, college C loses to college A only eighty percent of the time and loses to college B only twenty percent of the time. Suppose that when the admittee has the $5,000 discount, college C loses to college A ninety percent of the time and loses to college B fifty percent of the time. Our method ranks college C based on its average admittee–in other words, an appropriately weighted combination of the cases listed above. If we did not know how the individual admittee's tuition differed from the average admittee's, we might find the win-loss record among colleges A, B, and C somewhat confusing. Knowing the tuition discounts, we can correctly infer that certain students' increased likelihood of choosing college C is due to their being offered a discount that the average admittee does not experience. Put bluntly, we can tell whether college C has done 16 something to become more desirable in the eyes of its average admittee or has simply "bribed" a particular student to matriculate.*</p>

<p>And then Avery goes on to work with the model (the Section D. excerpt starts on Page 16).</p>

<p>Frankly, I thought it was intuitive that financial aid was an explicit factor in revealed preferences. Of course, intuition is not always correct, but it should be fairly easy to see that should Chicago choose to "bribe" more of its admitted students, it can win more cross-admit battles. According to Avery, money IS a factor for student preferences, and so he accounts for that in his study. So as you can see, colleges can "win" over intrinsic desirability simply by taking into account its other "factors". Basically, all of this is a part of revealed preferences. However, you said that financial aid had NOTHING to do with losing cross-admits. Simple intuition should tell you that this is simply not the case.</p>

<p>
[quote]
what are you talking about? where did this happen? the only conclusion that could be drawn was financial aid was equal across all the schools, if not in chicago's favor

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Actually, it was in favor of the OTHER colleges if you did a cross-examination between colleges based on scholarship awarded financial aid. Chicago wins on the basis of its total aid package, which includes other factors of aid such as work study and loans. People are more interested in the scholarship aid figures, since THAT is what is given directly to the students. Your initial figures failed to address the average scholarship aid awarded, and that was a major hole in the argument. This means that Chicago offers quite a substantial average work study/loans package, which is...hardly enticing to say the least.</p>

<p>
[quote]
i really hope you are not on a pre-law track where you will be expected to actually compose logically sound and valid arguments, and draw reasonable and expounded conclusions.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>No, phuriku's on the Mathematics track I believe, which from what I've heard, is quite rigorous at Chicago. He will be expected to find irrefutable "evidence" for his proofs, and write down statements that cannot be debated. Let's face it, Law is one of those professions full of rhetoric and convincing, but sometimes incorrect, demonstrations. After all, the lawyer of a truly guilty serial killer may be "reasonable" or "logically sound", but he's not right. The mathematician's successful proof on the other hand, is always right and can never be refuted by anything, really. This is another point I highlighted throughout the thread, that you have to be able to discern the difference between what's real, and what colleges want you to believe is "logically sound".</p>

110

<p>
[quote]
but it should be fairly easy to see that should Chicago choose to "bribe" more of its admitted students, it can win more cross-admit battles

[/quote]

yes, i agree</p>

<p>
[quote]
to Avery, money IS a factor for student preferences

[/quote]

i also agree. what i was disagreeing with was the assertion that it was inadequate financial aid packages that was the cause in chicago's low yield, as opposed simply to an inherent deficiency in desirability relative to its peer schools. More succinctly: Chicago wasn't losing these cross-admit battles because it was lacking financial resources, but simply because students liked the other schools better.</p>

<p>
[quote]
However, you said that financial aid had NOTHING to do with losing cross-admits.

[/quote]

no no no, see above, i said in chicago's case lack of financial aid was not a factor in its low yield relative to other peer schools.</p>

<p>what i did NOT say was that financial aid was not a factor in cross-admit decisions! just that chicago certainly wasn't lacking in the financial aid department compared to the schools it was losing students to, and that this was the cause of its low yield, as that guy with the really hard to spell name implied.</p>

<p>just let me clarify:
Chicago has a low yield, this is a result of losing many cross-admit battles to its peer schools, these lost cross-admit battles are not a result of poor financial aid packages from chicago, but rather are a result of chicago possessing an intrinsic lack of desirability relative to these other schools.</p>

<p>to exacerbate this effect, chicago even offers merit aid, while most of these other schools do not, regardless if someone wants to argue the amount is insignificant (which i dispute) ANY merit aid is more than ZERO.</p>

<p>these two points go back to my ultimate argument: chicago's applicant pool is not self-selecting, because even people who have applied to chicago very often choose to attend other schools once accepted, defying the idea that the applicant pool is "self-selecting" to very interested candidates, because they are clearly interested in other schools moreso than chicago.</p>

<p>sorry if there was confusion on these points.</p>