When our local high school’s students get accepted to Stanford, few of them enroll. Naviance shows that Stanford’s yield from our high school is only 20% (perhaps because we are on the East coast), compared to about for Stanford 77% overall. In contrast, Harvard has an 83% yield from our high school.
I am wondering if Stanford’s low yield is affecting out students’ admission rates. This is a public high school, and our student’s admission rate to Harvard is about 15%, whereas with Stanford it is only about 7%.
So, do you think colleges penalize high schools that have low yield?
@hebegebe If this has happened for a couple years, then yes this will definitely hurt you. Stanford doesn’t really want to admit students that might not even go. They might not “penalize” you, but they will definitely consider it so if you’re really really on the borderline, you might not get in as you (technically the students at your school) don’t show that much interest in Stanford.
I honestly don’t think admissions officers remember or keep track of yield rates from school to school to have it make a difference. Think of how much more extra work that would be. College admissions counsellors are people too. Personally I feel as though that is by chance or because Stanford has a lower overall admit rate
I would bet that the people that Stanford admits from the East Coast also have equivalent offers closer to home and you can believe that Stanford knows its cross admit rates by geographical area. If it mattered to Stanford, I’d think you’d see a decline in the admissions from your school over time, but I bet you’re not the only school where that happens. I wouldn’t worry. if they want you, they’ll admit you.
“I honestly don’t think admissions officers remember or keep track of yield rates from school to school to have it make a difference.”
Oh yes they do! And its really easy to do with a few keystrokes on the keyboard.
ADcoms keep the same territory for a number of years, and if they learn that students at a particular school usually dont accept offers of admittance, they wont try so hard advocating for other students at that HS in future years.
I believe that would be a regional issue rather than a high school specific issue. Unless the high school encourage the students not to go to Stanford, low yield rate is due to each student’s individual decision. How could they penalize the students from the same school for that? It would be true that the yield rate would be lower for certain region for obvious reason. However, it is the school itself wants the diversity. To overcome the low yield rate in that region, they may even need to admit more from that region unless they don’t want to have that regional diversity.