<p>Hey guys I've been thinking, and do you all think Ivy League schools accept kids with relatively low stats each year knowing that they will absolutely go to the school. This of course will increase their yield rate and make the school look better. Just an idea....let me hear some thoughts.</p>
<p>straw grasping theory here. the excellence of the admitted class far outweighs your (and USNWR) emphasis on Yield. This suite of colleges have among the best yields in the world. Why should they care? My belief: they’re above it all. They don’t care what a magazine says.</p>
<p>I’d hope to think that Ivys are above how they look in a magazine, but the reality is that when you get an applicant applying for one ivy, whose to say that he or she didn’t apply to all of them? This would bring the school’s yield way down. I know that the university of Florida rejects overqualified applicants knowing that he or she only applied to get accepted.</p>
<p>Yield is manipulated in the early admissions round. This is one reason why early admissions rates are twice and triple the regular admissions rate. They also fill up almost third to one half of their incoming class in the early rounds.</p>
<p>Generally, yield doesn’t change much from year to year either. They are math geniuses at these schools. Don’t think it’s all up to chance. This is a science.</p>
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<p>You’re assuming that this is something new? This cross-pollination has occurred since forever. They each study which colleges are their primary competition for matriculants. And it’s all accounted for when they set their target of how many to admit – and later, if they need to go to their waitlists.</p>
<p>I have always belived that they accept some lower stats applicants just to bring their stats down esspicialy in the tests if harvards SAT 50% range was 2380-2400 no one below 2350 would apply because they simply would not get in. If that happened their applicants would be significantly reduced and so would their super low acceptance rates.</p>
<p>No, not that either. They accept the students they want. Actually, with the size of the applicant pool and the size of the entering class, they accept a subset of the students they want. (For example: [Behind</a> The Scenes: How Do You Get Into Amherst? : NPR](<a href=“Behind The Scenes: How Do You Get Into Amherst? : NPR”>Behind The Scenes: How Do You Get Into Amherst? : NPR).)</p>
<p>When they want a student with 750/730/760 more than a student with 780/800/800, it’s because there’s something about that first student. It isn’t because they want to encourage more applications; they’re deluged. (See this link: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/15509923-post169.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/15509923-post169.html</a>. Or, as a former admissions dean at Princeton and Stanford once said, “I couldn’t pick a better class out of 30,000 applicants than out of 15,000. I’d just end up rejecting multiples of the same kid.”) Nor is it because they’re trying to boost yields that are already the envy of the higher-education industry.</p>
<p>Food for thought: On the MIT forum, MITChris (an adcom) said that they would prefer to have less applicants so that they could spend more time reviewing better apps. Which is also why they haven’t joined the commonapp.</p>
<p>MIT isn’t an ivy, obviously, but I thought that was interesting. I agree with most people here that the best schools in the country don’t have to play these silly games. When you get to the top 5-10 schools, the name recognition is off the charts and they know it. That is what keeps the applicants coming, not 3rd vs 4th place on US News.</p>
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<p>As it happens, that’s the “Reminder…MIT” link in my post directly above.</p>
<p>Very interesting perspectives guys! I do kinda see now that the Ivys don’t really care about their rankings in the top ten. They’re all great schools and a lower yield rate isn’t going to change that.</p>
<p>Yield is not among the ranking criteria in the USN&WR methodology:</p>
<p>[Methodology:</a> Undergraduate Ranking Criteria and Weights - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2012/09/11/methodology-undergraduate-ranking-criteria-and-weights-2]Methodology:”>http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2012/09/11/methodology-undergraduate-ranking-criteria-and-weights-2)</p>