From what I’ve been told there was a significant uptick in applications during the ED/EA rounds this year, so I’m sure that has affected the RD round. I know this is extremely frustrating for so many academically and otherwise talented students this year. We hedged our bets and my daughter applied ED and was accepted back in December. We needed a significant amount of aid and received it. Being that Case became full needs meet this year I believe we will see that more students applied ED this year than in past cycles. That may have reduced the available slots for EA and ED.
@EDHDAD , my D was deferred by one EA school which deferred most of the high stats kids. People gave exact same explanations defending the university by saying, may be eassays were bad, extracurriculars were bad etc. But a few weeks later my D sent LOCI and within a week she got the acceptance. How do we explain this?
^^or do the best they can to improve their ranking on paper.
I did a quick comparison between RPI and case. Doesn’t Case wonder why they have to pull over 40% from waitlist?
RPI data set is here
http://provost.rpi.edu/sites/default/files/CDS_2016-17%20Final%20Version.pdf#overlay-context=institutional-research/common-datasets
number applied 18524
total admitted 8215
enrolled 1691
waitlisted 4149
accepted waitlist 2420
offered from waitlist 4
https://case.edu/ir/media/caseedu/institutional-research/documents/pdfs/2017-2018-CDS.pdf
number applied 25380
total admitted 8405
enrolled 1308
waitlisted 7178
accepted waitlist 4252
offered from waitlist 586
case 2016-2017
number applied 23115
total admitted 8192
enrolled 1264
waitlisted 9293
accepted waitlist 4732
offered from waitlist 333
@bsms2018 Correlation does not equal causation. Look, I’m not denying that yield protection does not exist, I’m just saying that it has become this year’s catch all for parents with high stat children who cannot stomach rejections. It’s not always yield protection. Moreover, what the schools are trying to safeguard by waitlisting all of these students is the size of the incoming class. The adcoms are doing their best to make sure they do not over or under enroll given the quickly growing number of applications. It’s not because they are egotistical sadists obsessed with college rankings.
Since they mention housing, I am guessing it is because of the way they do freshman housing. They have the Four Residential Colleges and can’t enroll more than would fit there (other dorms are on southside and are for sophomores).
@annamom I don’t know for sure, but I doubt Case is trying to be like RPI. I wouldn’t if I were them.
I am sorry, I didn’t mean Case is trying to be like RPI. However, as a parent of a potential student, I consider RPI is similar to Case and how can RPI (and I assume a lot of other schools) can pick students who are likely to attend.
In the case of Case, it seems that Case relies on making offer to over 50% (admitted and waitlisted) of the applicants to fill its dorm.
If Case wants to protect its yield and wants to pick students who are seriously considering to attend, Case should seriously consider charging for application fee. (I thought they did this past year).
IMO, they are just trying to decrease their acceptance rate.
@annamom It’s easy for RPI to tell who will actually attend and who won’t. If it’s a guy they will, and if it’s a girl then they won’t. :)) Seriously though, this year I think is especially difficult for most competitive colleges because they are almost all seeing so many more applications. I can make jokes about RPI, but probably even they will have a tough time of it this year. In terms of Case charging a fee to apply this year, they did. It was one of the highest we paid if I remember correctly. They did offer a bunch of fee waivers to encourage certain groups of kids to apply. There was a thread a couple months ago where parents on here compared notes and it seemed like the students who paid an application fee had better success in gaining admission than those who didn’t. Very unscientific poll, but it sure felt that way based on the responses.
According to the numbers you listed above,
the yield rates:
Year 2017-2018: 1308/8405=15.5%
Year 2016-2017: 1264/8192=15.4%
That is, for every 100 admits, 15 attended ( matriculated ) in the past two years. There was not much difference in yield between those two years.
For the admit rates:
Year 2017-2018: 8405/25380=33%, without those waitlist applicants who said “no”: 8405/(26380-2926)=37%
Year 2016-2017: 8192/23115=35.4%, without those waitlist applicants who said “no”: 8192/(23115-4561)=44%
It seems to me that they have struggled so much to figure out who are coming.
Regardless, they should not waitlisted those who were deferred. Most of them will be rejected on the 3rd notice and the whole thing has been dragged since November 1. A terrible way to treat applicants.
I am lost little bit here, if Case is indeed trying to protect yield rate then shouldn’t be yield rate relatively higher then its peers?
@ewho thanks for echoing sentiment I expressed earlier “Personally feel low yield rate is failure of admission process that school admitted kids who decided not to join for various reasons.”
@EDHDAD my daughter was accepted to RPI, it was a last minute addition as it came to my radar when I read some posts. We will be scheduling our first visit and she is seriously considering it.
For Case, we went to the Open house after attending an info session in NJ. we also paid the application fee. The waitlist was kind of what I expected and I am not too upset. I do think the discussion of yield protection is upsetting.
@ewho I thought the adcoms should be able to do a better job.
@PPofEngrDr If Case were to protect yield rate, Case would be protecting from itself, otherwise it would be much lower.
However, I think Case is trying to decrease its acceptance rate and to improve its ranking.
@annamom Irrespective of acceptance rate (higher number is assurance for parents), but yield rate (students choice) that really define school quality. With all due respect, if relative low stats admitted students (in spite of high stat kids are denied/wait listed) are deciding not to join Case, shouldn’t be there something wrong? Those kids are not going Iviies or other high profile school (as claimed relatively low stats), that makes me think its about financials, not yield rate.
^^agreed.
I got back into this discussion because I think some pointed to yield protection which, IMO, is a lame excuse for Case.
Case is not going to rise in the rankings just as a result of increased applications because a rising tide lifts all ships. Everybody is getting more apps this year.
@hopewhite25 the very exact same thing happened to me
@amnamom I don’t know what your daughter is going to major in if she goes to RPI but if it’s STEM related she should plan on being the only female in most of her classes. My son’s friend goes there as a comp sci major and she says she is oftentimes literally the only girl in the class. It’s done wonders for her ego.
@ewho Just a little dispute: the yield rate is much lower if you remove the ED round and the enrollment from waitlist.
2017-2018 RA yield rate (1308-586-160(ED))/(8405-160(ED)-586)=7.3%
2016-2017 RA yield rate (1264-333-140(ED)/(8192-140-333)=10.2%