<p>momsquad, that is indeed odd about Davis. My understanding was that yield protection is pretty much something that you see in private schools, not publics, because public U admissions is primarily stat driven. Maybe there was a transcription error in putting the list together? Or, for that matter, maybe the Davis admissions people goofed. </p>
<p>Even if a school doesn’t explicitly mention “expressed interest”, there’s always the essays. When an applicant sends in something where it’s obvious they’re just phoning it in, that sends a message loud and clear to the admissions people. My favorite example was for GWU, where an outraged applicant who’d been accepted to several reaches was complaining on CC about being rejected from GWU. Heck, they even wrote about how they loved being in DC! Which, of course, the GWU admissions people know is another way for high-stats students to say “my first choice is Georgetown, but since GWU is in DC I’m using it as my safety.” :)</p>