<p>I think Nocousin correctly put his/her finger on why some top schools (i.e., CalTech, Rice, Northwestern, Hopkins, etc.) have lower yields than one might expect. It is because a high percentage of accepted applicants to these schools are cross admitted to more popular top schools like Harvard, Yale, MIT and Princeton--and much more often than not the lower yield schools lose those admission battles. That may tell you something--but frankly not very much. It is hardly news that the Ivys (plus MIT and Stanford) are a big draw--even if objectively many of the lower yield schools are just as good.</p>
<p>another point is the perception by some people that Ivy League students have better job prospects...and prospects to higher paying or more prestigious jobs...including the US Government (State, CIA, NSA, Justice for example). SOME of that perception is accurate as the US Government does indeed recruit for all those posts very heavily from the Ivy League but it is by no means exclusive. Thus, schools with a less prominent name until very recently (WashU comes to mind) have to struggle to convince people they do just as good of job on job placement, graduate school placement etc as the Ivy League does. </p>
<p>Do I have a soft spot for WashU? Yes. (My D was one of the ubiquitous waitlisted. Ugh. But they did write her and strongly recommend she reapply this year. She declined..and will stay where she is at.) </p>
<p>But the same can be said for Northwestern, Rice, Johns Hopkins, where geography (location) can come into play, sports scene, etc. Cal Tech is a special case....its small, its in Pasadena, its very very specialized and it has NO SPORTS. </p>
<p>We went to a dog and pony show locally on Columbia University in NYC. A nice young man (from Hawaii) came and spoke to our group. A nice presentation. But the room was filled with shall we say....a handful of minorities and the rest were essentially wealthy people. I dont know why that was....it just was. We were the only white public school people there. Strange. No explanation for that. Ultimately she did not apply there. But Columbia pestered her like crazy with emails and solicitations to take an online customer service survey as to why not. I thought that was very interesting. It was a reach school anyway and the 10% admit rate just scared her off...and seeing all those private school kids and parents...one of whom seemed to schmooze and was ultimately admitted. Whatever.</p>
<p>The college admissions phenomenon is very interesting to say the least.</p>
<p>Here are the yields of the public flagship schools in each state, along with some "quasi-flagship" in-state public competitors. Yields range from Nebraska's extraordinary HYPS-like 70.5%, to Vermont's 18.6%. Huge regional skew here: publics' yields are lowest in the Northeast, highest in the Southeast, Great Plains, and Mountain West. Any hypotheses as to why? I'm especially interested in hearing from people in especially high-yield or especially low-yield states or regions: how is your public flagship viewed, and how does that influences yield? </p>
<p>Note, however, that the median for this group of schools is somewhere in the low 40s, which would be quite high for a non-HYPS private research university and extremely high for a LAC. Note also that there is no obvious correlation between yield and quality (as measured by US News ranking, a flawed measure I know). </p>
<p>State/School/Yield/(US News ranking among publics, if any)</p>
<p>Nebraska: U Nebraska 70.5 (42)
North Dakota: U North Dakota 69.3
Florida: U Florida 62.9 (17)</p>
<p>Nevada: U Nevada-Reno 57.6
New Mexico: U New Mexico 57.5
North Carolina: UNC Chapel Hill 55.4 (5)
Louisiana: LSU 55.1
Oklahoma: Oklahoma State 54.9
Nevada: UNLV: 54.7
Texas: UT Austin 53.8 (13)
Alaska: U Alaska-Anchorage 53.4
Mississippi: Mississippi State 53.2
Virginia: UVA 51.7 (2)
Kentucky: U Kentucky 51.0 (61)
Wyoming: U Wyoming 51.0
Georgia: U Georgia 50.8 (20)
Ohio: Ohio State 50.5 (19)
Kansas: Kansas State 50.2 (62)</p>
<p>Oklahoma: U Oklahoma 49.3 (52)
Alabama: U Alabama 49.2 (42)
North Carolina: NC State 48.9 (39)
Missouri: U Missouri 47.4 (42)
Tennessee: U Tennessee 47.4 (45)
Idaho: U Idaho 46.3
Arkansas: U Arkansas 46.0 (62)
Washington: U Washington 45.6 (11)
Florida: Florida State 45.3 (54)
Illinois: UIUC 45.2 (8)
Iowa: Iowa State 44.1 (39)
Montana: U Montana 43.6
Michigan: U Michigan 43.1 (3)
Colorado: Colorado State 43.0 (62)
Georgia: Georgia Tech 42.9 (7)
Wisconsin: Wisconsin-Madison 42.8 (8)
Oregon: Oregon State 42.4
Kansas: U Kansas 42.2 (39)
Washington: Washington State 41.7 (58)
South Carolina: U South Carolina 41.5 (54)
Michigan: Michigan State 41.1 (29)
Hawaii: U Hawaii 40.8
Utah: U Utah 40.7
California: UC Berkeley 40.1 (1)</p>
<p>West Virginia: WVU 38.3
California: UCLA 37.7 (3)
Ohio: Ohio U 37.4 (54)
Arizona: U Arizona 37.1 (45)
Maryland: U Maryland 37.0 (18)
Mississippi: U Mississippi 36.8
South Dakota: U South Dakota 36.8
Virginia: William & Mary 36.8 (6)
Arizona: Arizona State 36.2 (62)
Oregon: U Oregon 35.7 (54)
Minnesota: U Minnesota 35.5 (29)
Indiana: Indiana U 35.4 (33)
Iowa: U Iowa 34.8 (24)
New Jersey: Rutgers 34.7 (20)
Colorado: U Colorado 34.1 (35)
Maine: U Maine 34.1
Alabama: Auburn 33.8 (45)
Indiana: Purdue 33.7 (24)
Pennsylvania: Penn State 32.2 (16)
New Hampshire: UNH 31.1 (52)
Delaware: U Delaware 30.8 (29)
Connecticut: UConn 30.5 (24)
Rhode Island: URI 27.9
New York: SUNY Stony Brook 26.6 (45)
Massachusetts: UMass Amherst 24.0 (45)
New York: SUNY Binghamton 22.6 (37)
Vermont: U Vermont 18.6 (45)</p>
<p>South Carolina: Clemson data not available</p>
<p>IN response to bclintonk, </p>
<p>Thanks to the Florida Bright Futures Scholarship, tuition for public Florida universities is 100% free for all in-state students with decent GPAs and SAT scores (I think you need a 1300 (R+M) SAT), so very few students leave Florida for undergrad. </p>
<p>Within Florida, UF has a great academic reputation and is most students' #1 choice. Moreover, Gator pride is HUGE here. EVERYONE in my family who has gone to college in the US went to UF for undergrad, so I, personally, was born and raised a Gator and didn't dare apply anywhere else for fear of being disowned by my family. lol (a bit of an exaggeration...a bit). </p>
<p>Outside of Florida, I think UF is just viewed as another state U. or just a party school, so not that many OOS students apply. If they did, the yield rate would probably be lower.</p>
<p>Anyway, I hope that helps explain why UF's yield rate, at least, is so high :)</p>
<p>bc,
Thanks for doing all of the work which I know must have taken a lot of time and effort. </p>
<p>No real surprise on the public university yield numbers and think that they would be even more impressive if only IS students were counted. I'm guessing with the large cost differential you would see many with yields in excess of 50%.</p>
<p>The cost benefit of the publics for IS students is probably best appreciated when considered in tandem with the Payscale data. While the earnings patterns of many publics suffer in comparison to top privates, most publics compare well with private schools of equal selectivity and do so at a fraction of the cost.</p>
<p>^^ AmandaisaGator,</p>
<p>Thanks for the clear explanation of the financial advantages and "Gator pride." I think there's a lot of the latter sort of school pride in SOME states, but clearly not all. </p>
<p>How much do you suppose it has to do with big-time college sports? I could be wrong, but I'd surmise sports play a significant role here, especially in states that traditionally didn't have a lot of pro sports, i.e., much of the Southeast, the Plains states, and the Mountain West. I know Florida has a ton of pro teams now, but that's a fairly recent development as these things go, and clearly in your family (and I assume in others) Gator Pride is a multigenerational phenomenon. I don't mean to say it's all sports, of course, but I do think in the SEC sports provide a focal rallying point for passing on the family traditions. Right?</p>
<p>By the way, I only ever applied to one college, the University of Michigan, and with their rolling admissions policy I was accepted b y sometime in October, as I recall. Never even seriously thought about applying anywhere else, though I knew I had stats that would have made me competitive at a ton of schools. Not so much sports in my case--I was a bit of a Wolverines fan, but not sports-crazy, and a first-generation University of Michigan. It was mostly what Hawkette described---a terrific education at (then) a bargain-basement price, and my education there got me everything in life I ever wanted.</p>
<p>Hmmm . . . not much response. I'll ask again: especially to students and alums of the top publics, was your school your first choice? If so, why? What made it your "destination school"?</p>
<p>In my case it essentially came down to a simple cost-benefit calculation (though I admit I'm a dinosaur, and the privates were not nearly so generous with need-based financial aid back in my day). A good friend of mine, in contrast, was 5th generation University of Michigan; her family knew before she was born that she'd go there. I suspect these are the two main drivers, and in some cases (like AmandaisaGator's) they coincide.</p>
<p>My sense is that with yields so high at many of the top publics, a high percentage of applicants must be making these schools their first choice---though of course the yield figure for any school (except perhaps HYPS) would also include some enrolled students who struck out with their "reaches" and settled for the school as a "match" or "safety."</p>
<p>this is a great thread</p>
<p>Could be the weather at Stanford. LOL. Who knows?</p>