"Destination schools" . . . and "backups"?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>US News stopped using "yield" (percentage of accepted applicants who actually enroll) in its rankings some years ago. But doesn't yield tell us something, quite apart from selectivity? Selectivity focuses on one half of a market transaction: how likely is it that an applicant will get an offer from a school? Yield focuses on the other half: how likely is an applicant actually to accept the school's offer?</p>

<p>Many factors go into a decision to accept an offer of admission, of course: perceived academic quality, prestige, perceived quality of life, expected cost (net of financial aid), and "fit" factors unique to the individual applicant, all measured against the alternatives available to the applicant. </p>

<p>But schools' yield ratios vary enormously, from nearly 80% at Harvard to around 20% at Case Western and some of the second-tier UCs (using as our universe only US News top 50-ranked national universities, for the moment. This suggests that yield can tell us something about a school's perceived desirability within its applicant pool. Almost no one says "no" to Harvard, and not surprisingly, HYPSM--or rather HYSMP, in that order---lead the yield chart. These are clearly "destination schools": if accepted, you'll likely attend.</p>

<p>But other schools attract a large and highly competitive applicant pool, yet find relatively few takers when they actually offer admission. This suggests that most of their applicants view the school as less desirable than its competitors (all things considered), and that many are using it primarily as a "backup" (I won't say "safety") in hopes of doing better.</p>

<p>Below are the yield ratios of the national universities ranked in the top 50 by US News. There are some surprises here: apart from the very top (HYSMP), yield ratios do not track US News rankings very closely. Some schools appear to be "destination schools," highly desirable to their applicant pool even if their applicant pool is not as strong as some other schools'. The University of Florida (#7), Notre Dame (#9), UNC Chapel Hill (#11), UT Austin (#12), and UVA (#13) are obvious examples. Some other public flagships--U Washington, UIUC, Michigan, Georgia Tech, and Wisconsin-Madison also rank fairly high as "destination schools", right around the same level as Cornell and Duke. Some elite privates---CalTech, Chicago, Rice, WUSTL, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Tufts, Lehigh, Emory---rank surprisingly low on this metric; despite their large applicant pools, stringent admission standards, high selectivity, and elite reputations, roughly two out of three applicants offered admission at these schools decide to go elsewhere, again suggesting that many applicants are simply using them as "backups," hoping to do better.</p>

<p>Rank/School/Yield
1. Harvard 78.7
2. Yale 71.0
3. Stanford 69.9
4. MIT 68.7
5. Princeton 67.7
6. Penn 65.7
7. U Florida 62.9
8. Columbia 59.1
9. Notre Dame 56.0
10. Brown 55.6
11. UNC Chapel Hill 55.4
12. UT Austin 53.8
13. UVA 51.7
14. Dartmouth 51.5
15. Cornell 47.0
16. Georgetown 47.0
17. U Washington 45.6
18. UIUC 45.2
19. Duke 43.2
20. Michigan 43.1
21. Georgia Tech 42.9
22. Wisconsin-Madison 42.8
23. Berkeley 40.1
24. NYU 38.8
25. Vanderbilt 38.5
26. CalTech 38.1
27. UCLA 37.7
28. Wake Forest 37.0
29. William & Mary 36.8
30. Chicago 36.1
31. USC 34.6
32. Rice 34.3
33. WUSTL 34.2
34. Northwestern 33.7
35. Johns Hopkins 33.5
36. Tufts 32.5
37. Penn State 32.2
38. Lehigh 30.0
39. Emory 29.6
40. Boston College 29.1
41. Syracuse 28.8
42. Brandeis 27.1
43. RPI 25.7
44. UC Davis 24.1
45. Carnegie Mellon 22.4
46. U Rochester 22.1
47. UC San Diego 21.6
48. Case Western 20.8
49. UC Irvine 20.7
50. UC Santa Barbara 19.4</p>

<p>If I have time, I'll look at LACs and non-elite public flagships in subsequent posts. </p>

<p>Thoughts/reactions?</p>

2

<p>Good stuff. What were your data sources?</p>

<p>The publics should probably go in a different category as their IS yields siginificantly boost their numbers while their OOS yields are sharply lower. Some time back, I looked at this for U Virginia as they provide the breakdown and the IS yield was about 65% and the OOS yield was less than 30%. I suspect that other publics had similar patterns. </p>

<p>No surprise to me on ND which I think is very, very underappreciated on CC. Among a certain segment of American society, there are few more prestigious names. </p>

<p>Another big factor that you might want to consider is the use of ED and EA and the degree of its use. In some cases, like U Penn, it was determined that something like 55-60% of its enrolled students came out of the ED pool.</p>

3

<p>^ I used the "admissions" data for each school posted on the Princeton Review 2009 website which just went up yesterday (dividing "total # of accepted students who enroll" by "total # of applicants who are accepted). I believe PR gets its data from the common data set provided by the schools, though of course there's always the possibility that the data are mistranscribed or otherwise inaccurate.</p>

<p>As for public going in a different category, you may be right. I've looked at only a few publics outside the top 50 so far, e.g., Ohio State, Georgia, and Alabama, all of which (if memory serves) are over 50%. These are schools that draw relatively few OOS applicants. For schools that draw a lot of OOS applicants, like Michigan and UVA, the OOS applicants probably drive their yield down as many are using them as "backups" for HYPSM and the other Ivies. Another thing to look at is the effect of a "second flagship" in the state. It seems pretty clear that Berkeley and UCLA drive each other's yields down. There may be some of that for UVA/William & Mary, and possibly for Michigan/Michigan State, whereas UIUC is the undisputed king of publics in Illinois.</p>

4

<p>Why is Rice's yield so low?
and Georgetown is a lot higher than I expected.</p>

5

<p>Here are the yields of the US News top 50 LACS. This generally tracks US News ranking much more closely than the research universities list, with a couple on notable exceptions: 1) the military academies have stellar Harvard-like yields, far outstripping other LACs; 2) some Upper Midwest schools (Carleton, Grinnell, Macalester) appear to suffer a severe locational disadvantage, ranking much lower in yield than in their respective US News rankings. Apart from the military academies (a special case), LACs as a group are not particularly strong "destination schools." The top performers---Williams, Middlebury, Barnard, Bowdoin--are roughly on a par with UIUC, Duke, Michigan, Georgia Tech, and Wisconsin-Madison, far below the stratospheric company of HYPSM and significantly below U Florida, Notre Dame, UNC Chapel Hill, UT Austin, UVA and the "lesser Ivies."</p>

<p>What's less clear is whether the top LACs' yields are lower because they, like the non-HYPSM/non-Ivy private universities, are primarily being used as "backups" for HYPSM/Ivies; or whether instead there are just so many cross-applications among the LACs themselves that it drives everyone's yield down. My guess is a bit of both, but I'm not sure how you'd tell.</p>

<p>Here's the list of yields for the US News top 50-ranked LACs:</p>

<p>Rank/School/Yield
1. US Naval Academy 84.7
2. US Military Academy 77.5
3. Williams 44.8
4. Middlebury 43.5
5. Barnard 42.7
6. Bowdoin 42.1
7. Davidson 41.4
8. Wellesley 41.1
9. Amherst 40.3
10. Claremont McKenna 39.9
11. Pomona 39.3
12. Swarthmore 39.2
13. Washington & Lee 38.8
14. Smith 38.0
15. Vassar 37.2
16. Bryn Mawr 36.7
17. Bard 36.4
18. Haverford 36.1
19. Carleton 35.2
19. Hamilton 35.2
21. Wesleyan 34.5
22. Oberlin 34.0
22. Colorado College 34.0
24. Bates 33.9
24. Kenyon 33.9
26. Colgate 33.3
27. Bucknell 33.2
28. Furman 32.4
29. Gettysburg 31.9
30. Colby 31.4
31. Harvey Mudd 31.3
32. Mount Holyoke 31.2
33. U of Richmond 30.5
34. Franklin & Marshall 30.4
35. Connecticut College 30.0
36. Lafayette 29.0
37. Whitman 28.6
38. Trinity 28.3
39. Grinnell 27.8
40. Skidmore 27.5
41. Scripps 26.9
42. Union 26.8
43. DePauw 26.5
44. Sewanee-University of the South 26.1
45. Dickinson 25.4
46. Pitzer 24.7
47. Macalester 24.1
48. Centre College 24.1
49. Rhodes 24.1
50. Occidental 19.7</p>

6

<p>The analysis of yield without factoring the OOS is almost meaningless. </p>

<p>Schools can have a high yield because they are highly desirable, but others like flaghship state schools might have high yields, but only because their pool of students have few options better than the best local public school. </p>

<p>Fwiw, yield was dropped by USNews for its lack of COMPARATIVE information and the ease by which it can manipulated through the creative and extensive use of waiting lists and deferred admissions. </p>

<p>Except for the bragging right among COMPARABLE schools, yield does not have much value, and especially none for aspiring students.</p>

7

<p>
[quote]
Here's the list of yields for the US News top 50-ranked LACs:</p>

<p>Rank/School/Yield
1. US Naval Academy 84.7
2. US Military Academy 77.5

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The admissions rates and yield numbers of the academies are not comparable to any other schools, and almost never reported correctly. The REAL admit rates are much higher than reported, as many applicants fail to receive an official nomination. The yield of the academies are not relevant.</p>

<p>For instance, here are the USNA numbers for the Class of 2010:</p>

<p>Applicants and Nominees
Applicants (includes nominees) ....................... 10,747
Number of applicants with an
official nomination ...................................... 3,751
Nominees qualified scholastically,
medically and in physical aptitude ............... 1,888
Offers of admission ......................................... 1,510
Admitted ......................................................... 1,215</p>

<p>Source: <a href="http://www.nvnapc.org/PlebeClassProfileClass2010.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nvnapc.org/PlebeClassProfileClass2010.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

8

<p>
[quote]
No surprise to me on ND which I think is very, very underappreciated on CC. Among a certain segment of American society, there are few more prestigious names.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Notre Dame has published (and is proud of) the fact that it is one of the few (if not the only one) that has a yield above 50% and and admit rate well below 50%. FYI, the 2007 First Year Applicant Pool was 14,506 applications, 3,548 admitted, and 1,985 enrolled. I am certain that people who have been in contact with GCs at Catholoc schools know about the "Notre Dame or bust" syndrome. Not that it is a bad thing! </p>

<p>The reality is that very few schools have a yield of above 40%. With the elimination of early decision/early action at many schools AND the increased ease of filing multiple applications without much incremental effort, one could expect the yields to come down everywhere --an no matter how many new games the creative schools unveil.</p>

9

<p>Also, the military academies are apples to everywhere else's oranges in the yield category for one huge reason - they're free (actually cheaper than fee since the students receive stipends). If any other schools above became free, their yields would also go through the roof.</p>

<p>While yield is surely associated with quality, it's also a measure of how a school draws against its competition. I work at a small state university with a yield rate of 56% - that's incredible. Our regional reputation has grown a great deal recently and we draw very well in competition to the other schools to which our applicants apply. But if our reputation continues to grow at this rate and our overlaps become the schools even higher in the ratings, I'd expect the yield to come back down.</p>

10

<p>As far as the impact of early admissions program, here are some of the most recent numbers for Stanford's Class of 2012. </p>

<p>The overall yield is about 72%, but it is composed by a 85% yield for their SCEA admits and a 65% for the RD admits. About 43% of the entering class was admitted in December and 57% in April. The largest losses in cross-admits went to Harvard and Princeton.</p>

11

<p>I found some old data from the 1996 USNWR Best Colleges issue (done in 9/95) which lists the yields for many of the colleges that bclinton posted at the top. Other than Harvard, which was and remains top of the heap in terms of yield, the biggest winners bear a close resemblance to the colleges ranked at the top of the overall USNWR rankings. One could infer that the rankings have a reinforcing power and likely increase the attractiveness (yield) of these most highly ranked colleges. </p>

<p>Here are the changes for many of those colleges:</p>

<p>1995 Yield , 2008 Yield , Change , College</p>

<p>THE BIG GAINERS </p>

<p>47% , 66% , 19% , U Penn
53% , 71% , 18% , Yale
51% , 69% , 18% , MIT
54% , 70% , 16% , Stanford
45% , 59% , 14% , Columbia
56% , 68% , 12% , Princeton</p>

<p>NICE GAINS </p>

<p>25% , 34% , 9% , Wash U
30% , 39% , 9% , Vanderbilt
48% , 56% , 8% , Notre Dame
29% , 36% , 7% , U Chicago
49% , 56% , 7% , Brown
28% , 34% , 6% , Johns Hopkins
37% , 43% , 6% , U Michigan
25% , 30% , 5% , Emory
75% , 79% , 4% , Harvard
48% , 52% , 4% , Dartmouth
48% , 52% , 4% , U Virginia
40% , 43% , 3% , Duke</p>

<p>STANDING STLL </p>

<p>47% , 47% , 0% , Cornell
22% , 22% , 0% , Carnegie Mellon
47% , 47% , 0% , Georgetown
33% , 33% , 0% , Tufts</p>

<p>LOSING GROUND </p>

<p>36% , 34% , -2% , Northwestern
37% , 34% , -3% , Rice
46% , 38% , -8% , Caltech</p>

<p>Insufficient Data </p>

<p>na , 40% , na , UC Berkeley
na , 38% , na , UCLA
na , 35% , na , USC
na , 55% , na , U North Carolina
na , 37% , na , Wake Forest</p>

12

<p>

Actually, only 48.7% (1178/2417) of Penn's class of 2011 was admitted ED:</p>

<p>Penn</a> Admissions: Incoming Class Profile</p>

<p>Another 202 ED appicants were initially deferred and then admitted RD, but of course those deferred applicants were not required to attend Penn once they were admitted RD, we don't know how many of them actually did enroll in the class of 2011, and even those who did ultimately enroll at Penn presumably were also admitted to other schools (and therefore should be counted in the RD yield).</p>

13

<p>


</p>

<p>Actually, isn't this true about all schools, except those at the very top? If you have a "better option" than school X, why would you choose school X--whether school X is Berkeley or Emory?</p>

<p>I think part of the confusion here comes in our understanding of what counts as a "better option." There's an assumption among some on CC that everyone is in a single national chase to get into the "best" school possible as measured by US News rankings, some generally accepted notion of prestige, or some common understanding of what counts as educational "quality.' It just ain't so. </p>

<p>My point in posting these yield figures is not to say that those with higher yields are in some objective or generally agreed sense "better." People have all sorts of reasons for choosing a college. And frankly, it's just a very small share of the market that obsesses over things like US News rankings. Some people, including applicants with outstanding credentials, actually PREFER to go their flagship state U, partly because they believe it provides a pretty good education (good enough, at any rate), but also for a whole host of other reasons, some eminently sensible (low cost; close to home), some arguably less so (home-state pride; loyalty to the University's sports teams; family tradition). </p>

<p>It's not my aim to criticize or to endorse the views people have of particular schools, or the reasons behind those views. My only point is , some schools are clear favorites among their applicants, others less so, and the yield ratios (which by the way colleges have no incentive to manipulate, now that they're no longer a factor in US News rankings) are a pretty good clue to that.</p>

<p>Notre Dame is an excellent example. There is a nationwide "Notre Dame family," if you will, that is fiercely loyal to the school. Some of these folks sincerely believe Notre Dame is the best college in the country, perhaps in the world. Others will acknowledge that while it's a very good school, on some measures it may not be better than, indeed may not even be as good as, some others. But that doesn't matter to them. Notre Dame is their school, always has been, always will be. Some of them would choose Notre Dame over any of the HYPS schools in an instant. That's what I mean by a "destination school." Not everyone who applies to Notre Dame feels that way. of course. But for a very large fraction of those who do apply, Notre Dame is their first choice, and if accepted they'll attend, no question.</p>

14

<p>University of Florida is actually extremely hard to get into now.</p>

<p>I know a kid that got into Dartmouth and UChicago, but didn't get into UF.
Oh and he was in state</p>

15

<p>
[quote]
My only point is , some schools are clear favorites among their applicants, others less so, and the yield ratios (which by the way colleges have no incentive to manipulate, now that they're no longer a factor in US News rankings) are a pretty good clue to that.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>BK, there is more to college competition than the August release of the US News. Inasmuch as comparing yields presents little to no value to students, it's an important yardstick for colleges, and true peers are keenly interested in being considered the leader of the pack. The direct "incentive" of artificially bosting one's yield ratio might have been removed from the US News calculation, but the incentives of earning the bragging rights is still very real. Just ask Rick Levin what he'd give up to best the Cambridge boys!</p>

16

<p>I strongly suspect that those numbers dont measure the "why's and wherefores" of the low retention rates. I also suspect a couple of reasons are such:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Some kids just LOVE prestigious sports programs and some of those low retention rate but prestigious schools are division III....duds for sports.</p></li>
<li><p>Some kids consider location.....it may be remote and hard to get to, it may not offer a lot of fun outside of the campus, or it may be a negative environment (sometimes that is a MISperception by kids and not entirely accurate...WashU suffers from this....undeservedly so).</p></li>
<li><p>A LOT of those kids who get into e.g. WashU are also getting into the big name Destination schools....and when push comes to shove, they pick the Destination school. Such as WashU v. Harvard. But if its WashU v. Duke, then its a matter of other issues....maybe Duke's basketball team, or Duke's better weather etc. Kids decisions are often fickle.</p></li>
</ol>

17

<p>45 percenter,
I deliberately worded my comments re U Penn ED as students coming out of their ED pool. Just under 50% are admitted via ED and then about another 10% of those applicants got in via RD. Given their ED application, I think it is a fair bet that a substantial number would matriculate to U Penn if admitted. That was the point.</p>

<p>I wish U Penn would provide a Common Data Set, but I think that they also do a better job than most schools of providing some detailed data on their applicant pool, including breakdowns of what pools of applicants were admitted, breakdowns of SAT scores by each 50 point break, etc.</p>

18

<p>

Actually, another 5% (202/4,001)--not 10%--of those applicants got in via RD.</p>

<p>But the point I was making is that it's really not appropriate to include that 5% of ED applicants in the analysis of how ED affects yield, since by the time those applicants were actually admitted, they had in effect become RD applicants and were free--like all other admitted RD applicants--to choose whether to attend Penn or any other school to which they were also accepted. In other words, the "selling their souls" ED yield-manipulation shibboleth no longer applies to those applicants. :)</p>

19

<p>
[quote]
In other words, the "selling their souls" ED yield-manipulation shibboleth no longer applies to those applicants.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Unless they were accepted via the waiting list ... the other very useful tool that boosts one's yield. The same tool that prompted a well known Southern school to greatly underadmit but offer more than 200 spots from its waitlist. All in the name of being able to announce a lower admit rate in May and boost the yield in August. ;)</p>

<p>However, I think that the issue of students coming from the ED pools is one of semantics. For some reason, it does seem that schools hesitate to break the artificial barrier of 50% of ED admits. A rule that Yale with close to 900 direct SCEA admits might deviate from.</p>

20

<p>

Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. :)</p>

<p>It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out once the final numbers for this wild and crazy admissions season are in.</p>