Theoretically ED should have 100% yield. However applicants can be released from the agreement if insufficient financial aid is offered. In some cases the family is unable to pay, in other cases the family is unwilling to pay. Also, based on posts here on CC some applicants just break the agreement for personal reasons.
Are there any figures available on the actual ED yield rate at various schools?
I’ve never seen a comprehensive list, but on a few common data sets, they list # of ED applied, admitted, and attended. You could then calculate the yield based on that info. For example, at Skidmore, they had 279/415 ED accepts and 265/279 enroll (95%).
If a school doesn’t actually list # of ED students who enroll, you could also back into that figure if they state somewhere what % of their class they fill through ED. For example, if they say that 40% of their class of 1000 is filled ED, and the Common Data Set lists 420 ED acceptances:
Accepted: 420
Enrolled: 1000*.40 = 400
Yield 400/420 = 95%
Cornell(2019): Accepted 1196, Attended 1165, Yield = 97.4 %
http://admissions.cornell.edu/sites/admissions.cornell.edu/files/Class%20Profile%202019%20.pdf
I agree with post #1- I’ve not seen a compiled list of actual ED matriculations compared to acceptances, but I have sometimes looked at it based on an individual school’s published enrollment history.
I think there should be a new term used rather than “yield” for this percentage. Something along the lines of “renege rate” “default percent” “backtracks” or “dishonor”, and then I would be interested to know if certain schools have higher than expected numbers.
I took a quick look at the common data sets for the top 25 National Universities and Liberal Arts Colleges. Of those 50 schools, I saw only 2 that offer ED plans, and include information about # of enrolled ED students:
Carnegie Mellon 311/326 (95.4%)
Washington & Lee 215/225 (95.5%)
While hardly statistically significant, and based on Cornell’s number above, I wonder if most schools in this range would come in at 95%+. The top schools do tend to be pretty good with Financial Aid, which would make it less likely that an applicant would pass on an ED acceptance. I’m curious to see where the 25-50 schools and 50-100 schools come in.
I don’t have comprehensive data to back it up, or anything like that. But the last time I looked at these figures for individual colleges, 6-7 years ago, the yield rate was 98%+. Many colleges enrolled 100% of ED acceptees, and the others had a difference of 1-5 people between acceptance and enrollment. I think the current numbers reflect a higher willingness to back out of ED.
That may be because of increased expense and less adequate financial aid. But it may also be because the colleges are being more successful at getting applicants who need aid to apply ED. The more price-sensitive applicants you have, the more you may accept, and the more you accept, the more who are going to think their aid offer (or lack thereof) is a deal breaker. To the extent that’s the case, the slight increase in the number of applicants turning down an ED acceptance may be a sign that the system as a whole is healthy.
My D’s college, Lafayette College publishes the ED acceptances/enrolled numbers in the class profile. For the class of 2019 there were 342 ED acceptances, 333 ED enrolled for a yield of over 97%…
Two more I found:
RPI 313/358 (87.4%)
Union College 235/260 (90.4%)
Perhaps it would be interesting to compare the rate of ED backing out to how good the school’s financial aid is.
I imagine there would be a Very High reverse correlation. Extremely liberal FA = Extremely low ED declinations
@ucbalumnus @“Erin’s Dad” The financial aid package probably explains a big part of the small number who do not go on to matriculate, yet there have been kids posting on CC that they want to get out of the ED agreement for non-financial reasons. Those kids may tell schools that it is financial- but it really isn’t.
I don’t see how this could possibly be a useful metric. Assume it’s 100%. Know that a few families will fall out somewhere along the way. Now what? How does this help anyone make any kind of decision?
@Pizzagirl, I don’t think anyone was looking to make a decision based on this data. I think it’s more just curiosity about how many people back out of binding ED agreements, for financial reasons or otherwise. No harm done in looking at the numbers.
I am the OP and I was just curious. :-h
Don’t forget that many/most? colleges do not meet full need for Internationals, so those ED applicants have no choice but decline if they need lotsa aid.
(Historically, Cornell was need-blind for International admissions, but did not meet full need. Next year, Cornell is moving to need-aware for Admissions, but meet full need of those admitted.)