Food for though (Yields)

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Yield is maybe the best indication of the desirability of a school, it is the number of students who attend/the number who were accepted. Very high yield = very desirable school; very low yield = safety school. For example, Harvard has the highest yield - with 79% attending; others at the top (~70% yields) include Stanford, MIT, Yale, Princeton (these are generally considered the country's top 5 schools). [Some high yields are anomalies due to regional preference or religion (BYU, Nebraska, Yeshiva), just ignore these]. </p>

<p>Some other "top schools" are actually just places that people attend when they can't get into a more desirable institution. Some good examples, ordered by "safety-ness" are Michigan (43%), Duke (42%), Berkeley (41%) and U of Chicago (@ 36%, few want to go here even though it's ranked #8 by USNews {bad neighborhood + geeky students + unpopular region}).</p>

<p>Some other interesting numbers that indicate overly puffed up schools include: my favorite overrated safety school - Boston College (@ a 29% yield, more than 7 out of 10 accepted students go somewhere better), Emory (30%), BU (21% no wonder they have to accept >50% of applicants) and - drum roll - the ultimate glorified safety school, Tulane (at an abysmal 18%). </p>

<p>How many dumb people have you met who went to one of these places, but act like they went to Princeton? I can think of a few...</p>

<p>Yield gives a pretty good ranking of the Ivies as well: 1)Harvard, 2)Yale, 3)Princeton, 4)Penn, 5)Columbia, 6)Brown, 7)Dartmouth, 8)Cornell. Again, athough they're not "Ivy League", Stanford and MIT belong in the top five overall.</p>

2

<p>Where can you easily find yield rates on a given school?</p>

3

<p>Penn is not more desirable than Columbia or Brown.</p>

<p>I believe they accept nearly half their class through Early Decision.</p>

4

<p>Never Mind, I found it.</p>

<p>[Most</a> Popular Colleges: National Universities - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/01/26/most-popular-colleges-national-universities.html?PageNr=1]Most”>http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/01/26/most-popular-colleges-national-universities.html?PageNr=1)</p>

5

<p>kwu makes a great point: any school can artificially boost its yield (and lower its acceptance rate) by admitting a large percent of its incoming class through ED.</p>

6

<p>Yields can be an interesting measure but each yield needs to be put into context.</p>

<p>–State schools can not be judged in the same way private colleges are as many attend for financial reasons alone.</p>

<p>–The percentage of the class is accepted ED must be accounted for.</p>

7

<p>I understand Storch’s point and agree that yield is a great indicator. The problem is that it’s not THAT great of an indicator by itself. Selectivity and stats of entering classes have to be factored in. Ohio State is going to have a much better yield than Tulane yet it’s not going to be as selective. Its stats are much lower as well. This goes back to your mention of regional preferences.</p>

<p>Continuing with Tulane as an example: I went to Tulane several years ago because I got a full ride and I’m from Louisiana. Tulane has a low yield because, while it’s one of the most expensive schools in the country ($50k+ per year) , it is in the poorest part of the country (Avg Salary in New Orleans $27k/yr). 75% of the school is from more than 500 miles away because very few in the South Eastern US can afford it without major help with financing. </p>

<p>In 2009, Tulane also got close to 40,000 applications for 1500 spots. It had a 26% selectivity for the entering fall class. Tulane had the similar or identical stats to UVA, USC, NYU yet it’s ‘ranked’ way lower by publications such as USNews. </p>

<p>If you factor in the selectivity and avg stats for entering classes, only then does yield begin to encapsulate the popularity of a college or university.</p>

8

<p>To a certain extent, yield can be an indicator of a school’s financial health. Tulane has a $1 billion endowment, but considering it’s age, that’s very low. If Tulane was able to offer more financial aid, its yield would go up substantially for those with a regional preference to Southern universities. So while I believe yield can be a GOOD indicator of desirability, it’s a GREAT indicator of a school’s financial health/security/alumni giving.</p>

9

<p>

Agreed. I calculated the 2013 list a while back, with the RD yields in parentheses.</p>

<p>Harvard 76.2%
Stanford 71.0%
Yale 67.6%
MIT 66.1%
Penn 62.9% (47.4%)
Columbia 59.1% (44.5%)
Princeton 58.6%
Brown 54.8% (44.2%)
Dartmouth 49.1% (40.6%)
Cornell 45.9% (35.1%)
Duke 40.1% (33.5%)
Caltech 37.5%
Chicago 36.4%</p>

<p>

Berkeley suffers from being a good school in a state with many other good schools. Compare to UNC Chapel Hill, for example, which has a much higher yield.</p>

<p>Berkeley
In-state yield: 37.9% (4262 of 11252)
OOS yield: 19.5% (216 of 1110)</p>

<p>UNC
In-state yield: 61.5% (3201 of 5209)
OOS yield: 31.6% (664 of 2100)</p>

10

<p>There are schools with higher yields than HYPS…</p>

<p>United States Naval Academy…82%
United States Air Force Academy…81%</p>

<p>A quick look at West Point also indicates a yield > 80%</p>

11

<p>I should have mentioned that of course acceptance rates GPA and SATs are a consideration as well.</p>

<p>I didn’t intend to imply that Ohio State is a better school than Duke; as I mentioned, most of these oddities are due to regional biases at State schools. Yield is most useful when comparing schools that have similar statistics for their entering class. For ex. Dartmouth v Duke.</p>

<p>ED can skew the numbers as well…</p>

12

<p>For state schools the bias is largely a cost one. There should be seperate lists for state and private schools for a meaningful analysis.</p>

13

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<p>IPEDS.</p>

14

<p>I agree with hmom5’s point that ED can distort yield data – and is likely actively used by colleges to manage their ratings</p>

<p>See the attached schedule from Trinity College. [Trinity</a> College: Admissions Facts](<a href=“http://www.trincoll.edu/orgs/planning/publicdata/Admissions.html]Trinity”>http://www.trincoll.edu/orgs/planning/publicdata/Admissions.html)</p>

<p>They have maintained a relatively steady reported yield over time by increasing the number of students accepted under early decision. ED now represents 46% of the class (up from 33% in 2000) – with an 80% acceptance rate.</p>

<p>I think a more useful measure is regular decision yield (back out ED from the total applicant pool). For Trinity College, this level is a relatively low 17% (down from 24% in 2000).</p>

<p>These types of trends raise interesting choices for applicants. Schools like Trinity who are trying to maintain competitiveness will increasingly reach for ED to sustain reported yield statistics used in ratings. Given that half the class is filled through ED, they can then be relatively more selective among RD applicants (as they can manage with only 1 in 6 enrolling). It seems like this trend accelerated this year (ED levels up significantly at a number of schools as overall applications declined). </p>

<p>For me, the lesson is not to be misled by simple statistics and/or ratings. It also suggests that applying ED can give you a real advantage at some schools.</p>

15

<p>

I agree primarily because early action colleges would otherwise be at a disadvantage.</p>

<p>If you read my post in which I separated overall and RD yields, you’d see that the two correspond pretty well – most colleges tend to take a similar chunk of their classes from ED.</p>

16

<p>ED skews these numbers.</p>

17

<p>

</p>

<p>How?</p>

<p>Duke</p>

<p>CR SAT 660 - 750
M SAT 680 - 790
W SAT 680 - 780
Admitted student 50th%-tile SAT: 2150
Yield: 42%</p>

<p>Dartmouth</p>

<p>CR 660 - 770
M 670 - 780
W 660 - 770
Admitted student 50th%-tile SAT: 2155
Yield: 52%</p>

<p>What is to be learned from the 10 percentage point difference in yields? I can’t see how it tells us anything about the quality of the students, (virtually statistically identical), or the school. How does the difference help a prospective student in his/her decision making?</p>

18

<p>Since the yield represents the proportion of admitted students that choose the school, one may be better served to compare schools with similar statistics for admitted applicants rather than matriculating students.
Given the comparable strength of their entering classes, Duke having a lower yield than Dartmouth may reasonable be explained by Duke having a better applicant pool or being relatively less Tufts-ish in its admissions process.</p>

19

<p>Storch - the problem with just looking at yields is that, as others have mentioned, schools can manipulate their yield rate pretty substantially. By heavily using ED, for example, UPenn can inflate their yield significantly, whereas schools that rely on EA (like Chicago), will have lower yields. </p>

<p>Actually, I’d say Penn is a good example of why relying on yields so much can be misleading. Penn inflates its yield through heavy use of ED, and are quite shrewd with their RD admits. In terms of desirability in the ivies, I would think, if you take away artificial inflation, Penn would be behind Brown and Columbia, but ahead of Cornell, and probably similarly situated to Dartmouth, at the tail end of the ivy league. So, instead of being 4th on the list, it’d probably be closer to #7 or so. Remember, Penn (along with perhaps Cornell), used to be the “gutter” of the Ivy League, and while it’s improved a lot, it’s doubtful that it truly has surpassed Columbia or Brown in terms of desirability. </p>

<p>Put another way, in the “revealed preferences ranking” based primarily on yield and head to head battles, UPenn finished behind every single other ivy league school except cornell. Granted, this was done 5 years ago, but it’s doubtful that Penn has moved ahead of Columbia, Brown, etc. in the past few years - their numbers are just inflated a bit. </p>

<p>Go here for the ranking: <a href=“http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05E1DA133AF933A15753C1A9629C8B63&pagewanted=all[/url]”>http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05E1DA133AF933A15753C1A9629C8B63&pagewanted=all&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Also, schools that practice yield protection more (denying qualified students because they won’t actually come) will see an increase in yield.</p>

<p>Admissions philosophy just matters a lot here. Again, Penn heavily relies on ED because it’s conscious about yield and wants to maintain its high yield. On the other hand, the old director of admissions at chicago, Ted O’Neill, announced that his approach was “to admit the best and take as many as we can get.” So if you admit a ton of kids that are generally very competitive and could go to more “alluring” schools (HYPS, Brown is a hot school, Columbia, etc.), you’re probably not going to get the lionshare of those students.</p>

<p>Fact of the matter is that it’s hard to see - outside of the very top schools (HYPS) - just WHY a student picks one selective school over another. For example, why would a student pick Columbia over Brown? There are a range of factors that go into this decision, and it’s hard to make any concrete statements about the thought processes that go into this decision. Location, financial aid, atmosphere of the school, etc etc. matter a lot. </p>

<p>Yield alone just doesn’t say very much at all. I think what you’re trying to argue is a way to show the “social catchet” each school possesses - but this sort of discussion requires a more detailed and nuanced discussion, and just yield rate isn’t enough to show anything.</p>

20

<p>

  1. Penn has the highest RD yield of the non-HYP Ivies. While it’s easy to claim that Penn cherry-picks applicants to improve its yield, I’ve seen no proof of that. Occam’s razor suggests that Penn is simply more popular. </p>

<ol>
<li>ED admits at Columbia make up the same percentage of the incoming class as at Penn (47%), yet Columbia’s RD yield is closer to Brown’s than Penn’s.</li>
</ol>

<p>

EA doesn’t seem to have hurt MIT’s yield in the slightest. The simplest conclusion is that Chicago is less popular or has other factors (e.g. poor financial aid) that hurt it.</p>