Yale took more early applicants than usual this year; perhaps because they consciously decided they wanted to increase yield. I guess if I assume a top-tier ED school has a 90-95% yield on their early admits and a top-tier EA school has an ~80% yield on EA offers, the difference isn’t enormous between, say, Princeton and Penn in terms of what % of the class will actually enroll if accepted early. I would also guess Princeton can assume a slightly higher yield on their RD admits than Penn, leading Penn to want to lock up more of their class early.
@spayurpets why is Pomona listed twice in #303? Also the Pomona FAQ page says the target class size is 415. https://www.pomona.edu/admissions/first-year-admissions-guidelines/frequently-asked-questions-about-decisions
Oops, my mistake. Pomona made a statement to the paper that ED made up 40% of the class, but the math worked out to 43%. I guess I should delete the 40% line when I update it.
Adding MIT to the % chart, and correcting the Pomona entry.
**Early Admissions as % of Total Target Class (estimate)
60% and above:**
University of North Carolina EA 175% (4000)
Georgia Tech EA 158% (2800)
University of Virginia EA 142% (3675)
Princeton SCEA 60% (1308)
50% to 59%
MIT EA 58% (1120)
Yale SCEA 58% (1360)
Bowdoin ED1/ED2 57% (500)
Georgetown EA 56% (1580)
Harvard SCEA 55% (1675)
Middlebury ED1/ED2 55% (685)
Northwestern ED 55% (1925)
Penn ED 55% (2445)
Tufts ED1/ED2 50% (1325)
Vanderbilt ED1/ED2 50% (1600)
40% to 49%
Duke ED 48% (1705)
Williams ED 45% (550)
Johns Hopkins ED 45% (1300)
Brown ED 43% (1550)
Pomona ED1/ED2 43% (415)
Dartmouth ED 42% (1175)
Cornell ED 41% (3275)
Stanford REA 41% (1800)
Davidson ED 40% (415)
30% to 39%
Amherst ED1/ED2 38% (472)
Harvey Mudd ED1/ED2 35% (200)
George Washington ED 33% (2474)
Boston University ED1/ED2 30% (3500)
The last time that UChicago revealed their EA numbers, their EA admittees numbered nearly 100% of the class. (New York Times reported UChicago’s EA stats in 2013 http://chicagomaroon.com/2013/11/26/early-action-applications-set-another-record-continue-yearly-rise/). I wonder how much that number has changed since then. It’s been somewhat of a black box this year.
Filling out the table with the remaining schools that have reported EA/ED data: Boston College, Notre Dame, Scripps, Pitzer, University of Georgia.
**Early Admissions as % of Total Target Class (estimate)
60% and above:**
University of North Carolina EA 175% (4000)
Georgia Tech EA 158% (2800)
University of Virginia EA 142% (3675)
University of Georgia EA 141% (5300)
Boston College EA 117% (2300)
Notre Dame EA 80% (2010)
Princeton SCEA 60% (1308)
50% to 59%
MIT EA 58% (1120)
Yale SCEA 58% (1360)
Bowdoin ED1/ED2 57% (500)
Georgetown EA 56% (1580)
Harvard SCEA 55% (1675)
Middlebury ED1/ED2 55% (685)
Northwestern ED 55% (1925)
Penn ED 55% (2445)
Tufts ED1/ED2 50% (1325)
Vanderbilt ED1/ED2 50% (1600)
40% to 49%
Duke ED 48% (1705)
Scripps ED1/ED2 46% (245)
Williams ED 45% (550)
Johns Hopkins ED 45% (1300)
Pitzer ED1/ED2 44% (265)
Brown ED 43% (1550)
Pomona ED1/ED2 43% (415)
Dartmouth ED 42% (1175)
Cornell ED 41% (3275)
Stanford REA 41% (1800)
Davidson ED 40% (415)
30% to 39%
Amherst ED1/ED2 38% (472)
Harvey Mudd ED1/ED2 35% (200)
George Washington ED 33% (2474)
Boston University ED1/ED2 30% (3500)
are all these schools jacking up their EA numbers from last year? Princeton at 60%?? MIT and Yale at 58% that’s insane but then again their yield has been off… so I suspect it was a conscious decision to go for more EA. even Stanford is jacked at 41%… used to be around 33%.
I think it might be more useful to mention the ED acceptances as a % of total admits instead of target class size, because these schools have radically different yields, the ratio of Early admits to total class size will not really inform future students whether applying early is a major advantage. For e.g a school could admit 200% of target school size, but if their yield is terrible, there may be no real advantage to applying early there. Most admits will turn them down so there will be a lot of slots left for RD. On the other hand if a University with very high yield is admitting 60% of its total admits in its early round, now that might make an applicant pause and consider if they should apply Early
If Princeton really admits 60% of its class EA (seems ridiculously high to me - I always thought Harvard was gaming this the most) then students even thinking about applying to Princeton will apply early because the odds are better. same with Yale, MIT. obviously an interesting game theory decision by these schools to admit a very high number EA which basically means all the schools will follow. this is a classic version of Prisoner’s dilemma. repeat it often enough the optimal outcome is for everyone to cheat (to admit an even greater EA percentage to boost yield)
also the schools with the relatively lower EA rates Stanford (41%) and Harvard (55%) have the highest yields Stanford 81% and Harvard at 80%. I’m willing to bet that Princeton, Yale and MIT have jacked their EA rates over the course of several years in an effort to close the gap. Game theory at work!
Any stats on NYU?
@sbjdorlo, any overall stats for NYU may not be all that useful, though, as NYU admits by school and let’s face it, there’s a bit of difference in both prestige and difficulty of entrance in to Stern or Tisch and in to LSP.
I believe Stern does break down their admissions numbers, though.
If schools start reporting yield information, we can include a table for that, so post 'em if you got 'em. (I assume that yield won’t truly be known until mid-summer after the waitlists are cleared.)
@PurpleTitan, do you happen to have a link for me? I know an intl student who’s interested in two of the programs, and would love to be able to see if NYU is even a shot based on his interests and background. I know I could google, but today I am feeling lazy.
@sbjdorlo, nope. Saw it somewhere once.
This doesn’t make any sense, you can’t boost yield by overstating your EA acceptance percentage, because once you give the EA applicant an acceptance, all the schools are still free to go after the student; i.e., the playing field resets. Your statement might be more true if all the schools were binding ED; if all the “best” students are gone by ED, then you are screwed. I honestly don’t think the schools view themselves as being in a prisoners dilemma, if anything they have a vast overabundance of great candidates, and they are far more likely to reject the next Mark Zuckerberg rather than lose him to Stanford as a cross-admit.
- admitting higher EA (less so then ED.. but it boosts yield) percentage boosts yield
- this forces other colleges to admit higher % of admits EA to maintain yield. (harvard went back to EA when its yield went down).
- what was Princeton's EA rate 2 years ago? bet you it was lower than it is now. certainly I would be surprised if it was 60% (which is an indication they are gaming to boost yield)
you raise an interesting point though… repeat the game often enough schools would switch to ED from EA. that would be the optimal outcome for the schools.
this is a classic prisoner’s dilemma example. the schools are all raising their EA percentages to boost yield. interesting to check what the EA rates were for Yale and Princeton 2-3 years ago. I don’t know the stats but have a feeling they were lower.
just checked the stats…
3 years ago Yale’s EA rate was 48% now 58% up 10%
3 years ago Princeton’s EA rate was 54% now 60% up 6%
same most likely goes for Stanford, Harvard, MIT etc…
as I suspected (if I did the calcs correctly with your current calcs) schools are raising their EA rates to boost yield. (classic prisoner’s dilemma example)
@sbballer : I agree with you that admitting more students EA should increase yield at HYPS, because those schools have restrictive early action (i.e., you can only apply to one early) and there’s a clear statistical edge to applying early, so this tends to flush out a student’s first choice. The savvy top-tier students will apply early to one of these (their first choice), and, if they get in, they’ll be more likely to call it a day and not apply anyplace else, or to fewer places, which should increase the yield at the school that admitted them early.
That said, I don’t believe the trend is as pronounced as you suggest, because I think the right way to look at this is to consider early admits as a percentage of total admits. At Yale, for which I pieced together the numbers from announcements / disclosures, from 2009 to 2016 this percentage has held remarkably steady, as follows: 38.0%, 37.6%, 37.9%, 34.2%, 32.6%, 38.0%, 38.3% and 40.3%. It should be noted that the two low numbers are for the two admission years following Harvard’s and Princeton’s restoration of early action, which can be assumed to have caused early admits to dip before stabilizing as the Yale admissions office adjusted to the new regime. If you take out those two years, it seems pretty clear that allocating 37 - 38% of total admits to the early round has been the rule of thumb for some time.
This year’s result certainly shows a modest increase, which would tend to support your view. Apart from a desire to goose yield, though, Yale might have done this as an intermediate step to prepare for the fact that, beginning next year, when they open two new residential colleges, class size will increase by 15%. With a larger class, it follows that the absolute number of students admitted early will increase, as it did this year (to 795 from 753 the year before).
Adding Lehigh: http://thebrownandwhite.com/2016/04/27/lehigh-ranking-little-effect/
Harvard RD 1119 out of 32868 (3.4%)
Stanford RD 1318 out of 36175 (3.6%)
University of Chicago RD (~4%) (Total Apps ~32,000)
Yale RD 1177 out of 26793 (4.4%)
Princeton RD 1109 out of 25074 (4.4%) (1237 waitlisted=4.9%)(rej=90.6%)
Columbia ED/RD 2193 out of 36292 (6.0%)
Penn RD 2326 out of 33156 (7.0%)
MIT RD 829 out of 11253 (7.4%) (437 waitlisted)
Brown RD 2250 out of 29360 (7.7%)(~133 deferred accepted=7%)(~1000 waitlisted=3.4%)
Pomona RD ~566 out of 7190 (~7.9%)
Northwestern RD 2690 out of 32077 (8.4%)
MIT EA 656 out of 7767 (8.4%) (4776 deferred=61.5%) (2175 rejected=28%)
Duke RD 2501 out of 28600 (8.7%) (49 deferred accepted=2.9%)
Vanderbilt RD 2526 out of 28700 (8.8%)
Dartmouth RD 1682 out of 18748 (9.0%)
Stanford REA 745 out of 7822 (9.5%)
Johns Hopkins RD 2539 out of 25188 (10.1%)
Harvey Mudd RD 421 out of 3716 (11.3%)
Bowdoin RD 687 out of 5918 (11.6%)
Tufts RD ~2168 out of 18152 (~11.9%)
Amherst College RD 969 out of 7943 (12.2%)
Cornell RD 4939 out of 40084 (12.3%) (4572 waitlisted=11.4%)(rej=76.3%)
Swarthmore College ED/RD 963 out of 7,717 (12.5%)
Georgetown EA 892 out of 7027 (12.7%) (remainder deferred=87%)
UC Berkeley (OOS) 2734 out of 21213 (12.9%)
Pitzer College ED/RD (12.9%)
Notre Dame RD 1955 out of 14,178 (13.8%)
Middlebury RD 1042 out of 7866 (14.2%)
Boston University ED2 ~245 out of 1721 (~14.2%)
Harvard SCEA 918 out of 6173 (14.9%) (4673 def=75.7%) (464 rej=7.5%)
Williams College RD 960 out of 6397 (15.0%)
Barnard College ED/RD ~1131 out of 7071 (~16%)
Georgetown RD 3276 out of 20002 (16.4%)
USC RD 8920 out of 54100 (16.5%)
Harvey Mudd ED1/ED2 ~77 out of 464 (16.6%)
Yale SCEA 795 out of 4662 (17.1%) (53% def) (29% rej)
Colby College ED/RD ~1720 out of 9822 (17.5%)
Grinnell College ED/RD ~1326 out of 7368 (~18%)
UC Berkeley (IS) 8363 out of 45,773 (18.3%)
Princeton SCEA 785 out of 4229 (18.6%)
Middlebury College ED2 60 out of 318 (18.9%) (40 def=12.6%) (218 rej=68.6%)
Pomona ED1/ED2 ~177 out of 914 (19.4%)
Georgia Tech RD ~3206 out of 15,659 (~20.5%)
Brown ED 669 out of 3030 (22.1%) (1905 def=62.9%) (456 rej=15.0%)
Scripps RD ~632 out of 2743 (23%)
Penn ED 1335 out of 5762 (23.2%)
Duke ED 813 out of 3455 (23.5%) (1663 def=19.2%)
Vanderbilt ED1/ED2 ~800 out of ~3390 (23.6%)
UVA EA (OOS) 2955 out of 12308 (24.0%) (3005 def=24.4%) (6348 rej=51.6%)
Hamilton College ED/RD 1317 out of 5434 (24.2%)
Lehigh University ED/RD 3420 out of 13,408 (25.5%)
Dartmouth ED 494 out of 1927 (25.6%)
Kenyon College ED/RD 1688 out of ~6400 (~26.4%)
Vassar College ED1/ED2/RD 1943 out of 7306 (26.6%)
UVA RD (IS/OOS) 4166 out of 15658 (26.6%)
Cornell ED 1338 out of 4882 (27.4%) (1153 def=23.6%) (2391 rej=49.0%)
Pitzer ED1/ED2 ~118 out of 423 (27.8%)
Wellesley ED/RD ~1368 out of 4888 (~28%)
Georgia Tech EA 4424 out of 14861 (29.8%)
Bowdoin ED2 ~77 out of 256 (~30.1%)
Notre Dame EA 1610 out of 5321 (30.3%) (818 def=15.4%) (2893 rej=54.4%)
Johns Hopkins ED 584 out of 1929 (30.3%)
Boston University ED1/ED2 ~1050 out of 3421 (~30.7%)
Boston College EA ~2700 out of 8600 (~31.4%)
Tufts ED ~663 out of 2070 (~32%)
Skidmore College ED1/ED2/RD ~3000 out of 9150 (~33%)
Bowdoin College ED1 207 out of 614 (33.7%)
UNC EA 6948 out of 19842 (35.0%)
Northwestern ED 1061 out of 3022 (35.1%)
College of William & Mary ED/RD 5095 out of 14380 (35.4%)
Amherst College ED 180 out of 454 (39.6%)
Middlebury College ED1/ED2 398 out of 954 (41.7%)
George Washington RD 10101 out of 24168 (41.8%)
Williams College ED 246 out of 585 (42.1%)
University of Florida RD 13,624 out of 32,000+ (~42.5%)
Dickinson ED1/ED2/EA/RD 2636 out of 6171 (42.7%)
Fordham ED/EA/RD ~19,650 out of 44,697 (~44%)
Occidental College ED/RD ~2884 out of 6409 (~45%)
Davidson College ED 207 out of 458 (45.2%)
Boston University ED1 ~805 out of 1700 (~47.4%)
Scripps ED 113 out of 235 (47.9%)
UVA EA (In-State) 2237 out of 4460 (50.2%) (1060 def=23.8%) (1163 rej=26.1%)
University of Georgia ED 7500+ out of 14516 (51%+)
Middlebury College ED1 338 out of 636 (53.1%) (74 def=11.6%) (224 rej=35.2%)
George Washington ED 841 out of 1373 (61.3%)
University of Maine RD (OOS) 7803 out of 10,062 (77.5%)
University of Maine RD (In-state) 3600 out of 4134 (87.1%)