<p>Sorry folks--I stand corrected--yield is out of the mix for the rankings. See below:</p>
<p>When the new edition of the U.S. News & World Report Guide to America's Best Colleges comes out later this month, yield won't be part of the mix. The magazine's editors say the yield factor, and its part in the early admissions debate, had become a lightning rod for criticism. The annual ranking issue has drawn fire over the years because of its influence on school choice: Early decision programs boost a college's yield, making it appear more desirable to prospective students and their families.</p>
<p>"They're right that it has become a Lightning rod, because it appears to the public that colleges manipulate yield, thinking it will improve their rankings," says admissions consultant and University Business contributor Howard Greene. "But, in fact, it is such a small factor that U.S. News is wise to do away with it."</p>
<p>Greene says rankings are not the reason colleges care about yield; rather, it is how competitive they are with one another for the best students. "For example, part of what led Princeton to go coed years ago was that its yield was going down as other institutions went coed," he says. "Every decade there are trends for which schools become more competitive within their particular orbit of college competitors."</p>
<p>Very little of the US News ranking is based on admission factors that could be tweaked. If a school really wanted to make the rankings shift, they'd hire more faculty and pay them better. Those items are in a school's control and have a nice chunk of the methodology.</p>
<p>Dean J - thanks for jumping in. I often wonder about a school's ability to manipulate the rankings. Although my opinion only, two schools that come to mind are Washington University in St. Louis and Emory. While I have not done a detailed search, I concur with the relatively low peer assessments for these two schools compared to their overall ranking by USNWR. It sure seems like those schools have mastered a way to be ranked much higher than at least their peer assessment (a factor I really like to look at) would justify.</p>
<p>Our stats people studied the methodology a couple years ago and looked at what areas could really being driven by the school and create movement on the list.</p>
<p>We refuse to fudge our numbers...something I suspect is being done with a few stats at other schools.</p>
<p>of course you can tweak the numbers...accept 4000 people instead of 6000, then waitlist 3000 people. pull everyone off the wait list. gets that admission rate real low, hehe.</p>