Food for though (Yields)

College Search & Selection
21

<p>IBclass - yes by a couple percentage points, Penn edges out Columbia and Brown for RD yield. I would be interested to see head to head battles in cross-admits between Columbia, brown, Penn, and Dartmouth though, and here, I’d think Penn loses to every single one of these schools. The closest study we have to this is the 2004 revealed preferences study, and, as I said above, penn finished behind every single ivy league school except for Cornell. Penn probably should have a very strong yield, but 66% or whatever it is occurs because of its heavy reliance on ED. </p>

<p>MIT occupies a pretty specific niche in the college marketplace - for what it does (engineering, the sciences, etc.), pretty much no other school does as well. Chicago, on the other hand, is less unique in the college marketplace - it’s a great school, but lots of other schools offer great liberal arts academics in more desirable areas (Harvard, Columbia, Brown, Stanford, etc etc.). </p>

<p>The main point of my past thread was this: yield can be misleading. It doesn’t tell the whole story by any means. The revealed preferences study at least does more on this front - while Penn may be in the top half dozen or so for pure yield, it’s most likely not in the top ten in head-to-head battles for cross-admits. Either way, any of these studies are problematic because they are assessing what factors 18 year olds value when looking at a school, and a simple percentage won’t tell the detailed story necessary to show why one college is picked over another (again, location, strength of financial aid, atmosphere of school, etc.).</p>

<p>Also, many schools are VERY savvy and aware of what their peer schools are doing, and make admissions decisions accordingly. I don’t have time to look right now, but there was a detailed study conducted on the admissions strategies utilized by Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. The researchers found that Princeton’s admissions committee became increasingly adept at finding those students that would JUST miss the cut at H or Y, and Pton would then accept these students to boost their yield. I’m sure other schools that are quite aware of yield, such as UPenn or Stanford or whatever, may follow such strategies as well. </p>

<p>Traditionally, under Ted O’Neill, Chicago had a very laissez faire approach to admissions. The new admissions director, Jim Nondorf, cut his teeth at Yale’s admissions committee, and the administration seems intent on increasing the school’s “social cache.” Admissions statistics, yield, etc. are all very malleable numbers, so expect some change on this front at Chicago in the years ahead. Remember, it really wasn’t that long ago that Penn was at the bottom of the ivy league (and not more toward the middle - where it is now), and Chicago had an acceptance rate of 65% (65 percent!). All of this stuff can be manipulated pretty easily.</p>

22

<p>Is there any source that has rd yields?</p>

23

<p>I worked in admissions at Penn years ago. It has always been hugely popular with kids along the E.Coast from CT to Virginia. We could get good yield by taking large numbers of these kids, but yield went way down with kids from other parts of the Country. Schools have a very good idea who they are likely to yield and can manipulate yield this way too. </p>

<p>Schools located in remote spots are negatively impacted yield wise and those located in hot spots positively impacted.</p>

24

<p>

</p>

<p>With a yield less than 60% this year at Princeton, they did a little better than flipping a coin.</p>

25

<p>ewho - yield is around 60% for Princeton, but if they only fought for cross-admits with Harvard and Yale, their yield would really be about 20% or so (again revealed preferences show that harvard really, really dominates when it comes to yield), so a 60% yield isn’t really that bad.</p>

<p>I think hmom’s post should be heeded carefully. With experience in admissions, she probably has the best idea of how a certain top school views yield. From what I know in doing some college counseling, I also get the sense that some schools are very, very aware of just who to admit to increase the yield rate. More emphasis on legacies, hotly recruiting kids close to home, recruiting hard for certain sports, etc. could improve yield. It’s my sense that certain schools are very aware of this and act accordingly. This is why just blindly pointing to yield statistics (as the original poster, storch, does) isn’t that helpful in judging the status of a school.</p>

26

<p>the reason BC’s yield and other schools like it is low is because all the kid’s who apply to ivies apply there, and then end up getting accepted to at least 1 of the other 8 better schools they applied to. It still has a very good student body(qualified applicants that couldn’t make it into ivies), which yield does not reflect.</p>

<p>This does not mean that a school is overrated…other interesting yields</p>

<p>Carnegie Mellon-23%
Brandeis-27%
Uchicago-36%
Rice-33%
Northwestern-34%</p>

<p>funny how he points out BC for having 29% and therefore being WAY OVERRATED yet these other universities (often considered underrated?) were not mentioned and comparable in yield %</p>

27

<p>

</p>

<p>This research was done, by Harvard people, without any hard data to back it up. My claim of three way split of the cross-admits, with Harvard leads a little, may be more reasonable. Harvard loses more cross-admits than people think to YPSM.</p>

28

<p>ewho - yes, certain studies were created by the Harvard admissions office, but they were created to provide information to administrators and deans of Harvard College, not for general public consumption. Put another way, these were internal reports to alert Harvard administrators of changes they would need to make for Harvard to maintain its status. Accordingly, there was no incentive to lie or fabricate numbers, since (presumably) all administrators had a vested interest in doing what was best for Harvard. So these reports actually account for the highs and lows of Harvard student recruiting. For example, in the 1970s and 1980s, Harvard struggled considerably in cross-admit battles with Stanford, and by struggle I mean only 67% of cross-admits chose Harvard. By the 1990s, in cross-admit battles with Stanford and Princeton, Harvard took about 80% of the cross-admits. </p>

<p>I point to this book a lot, but for more info on yield and cross-admit battles, check out Jerome Karabel’s “The Chosen.” The info I’m citing above can all be found on Pg. 511 of the paperback version of his work. His book does a good job of recounting just how sensitive schools can be about yield, and how they adjust admissions strategies to maximize yield. </p>

<p>In any case, my main point was still to contend that yield - as a general statistic - doesn’t really indicate or suggest much. It maybe shows how some schools (like a Penn or Duke or whatever) are interested in inflating their yield rate, but beyond that, the statistic isn’t that helpful. There’s a lot that goes into a decision about college, and we need more than just the yield rate to construct a hierarchy of elite schools.</p>

29

<p>Another point - yield and other stats like acceptance rate can be manipulated quite easily, and schools do this all the time. Wash U looks to have as low an acceptance rate as possible, UPenn looks to inflate yield with heavy reliance on ED, etc. </p>

<p>In the relatively recent past, UPenn was accepting 40% of applicants, and probably had a much lower RD yield. In the past decade or so, I think they’ve really concentrated on improving their admissions numbers and giving off more of an appearance of elitism. Wash U, Brown, and many others have seen drastic changes in admissions as well. </p>

<p>On a related note, I think most major universities are going to follow suit. Not long ago at all, Chicago was ranked #15 or #16 in US News, and had a 50-60% acceptance rate. That accept rate has plummeted of late, and the school took certain steps to improve it’s US News ranking, and get it to #7 or #8 or whatever today. I anticipate the new dean of admissions (who directed student recruitment at Yale), will make sure to be much more sensitive about yield and accept rate in the future. 4-5 years from now, just as Penn or Duke did this years ago, Chicago should have around a 15-20% accept rate, and a 45-50% yield rate, if the administrators have their way.</p>

<p>This doesn’t really mean much for the school, except that the administrators have grown more adept at manipulating and inflating certain statistics. This also won’t lead to that big a change on campus, but giving off the perception of elitism is important - especially to relatively fickle 18 yr olds. Kids care about the US News ranking, the yield rate, the accept rate, etc., and schools need to cater to these interests to some extent to keep up with everyone else. </p>

<p>It’s just how the game is played today.</p>

30

<p>

</p>

<p>They never released the cross-admit data to the public, but the PR report to say Harvard won by how much. Like the Forbes ranking, which will never put Harvard on top of Princeton.</p>

<p>It is not that I disagree with you that the yield does not give info about the school, but I need to see the real data to believe the facts about the cross-admits. Just google “Harvard Yale Princeton Stanford”, you will see more info about the cross-admits.</p>

31

<p>Yah you could be right - the ny times article on cross-admit battles I cited above, however, seems to point to Harvard’s continuing dominance on this front: “The degree of Harvard’s dominance was staggering. From their analysis, the researchers predict that a student who gets into both Harvard and Princeton is three times as likely to go to Harvard.”</p>

<p><a href=“The New York Times - Breaking News, US News, World News and Videos”>The New York Times - Breaking News, US News, World News and Videos;

<p>Either way, all this talk about specific yield is kinda beside the point. My main point was, again, that yield is a highly manipulable statistic, and doesn’t really suggest much. Just in general, most admissions stats are highly manipulable and don’t really say much about a college.</p>

<p>I think other factors, such as a school’s financial resources, location and atmosphere of a school, structure of the school, etc. matter a lot more. Moreover, these sorts of factors can not be doctored in the same way as admissions stats.</p>

32

<p>“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>

<p>This made me chuckle: not necessarily because I agree with the statement, but more that Dartmouth mommy didn’t immediately come to the rescue. I’ve seen her pounce on lesser slights against the Univ. of New Hampshire @ Hanover.</p>

<p>That being said, to suggest that Duke doesn’t care about or manipulate their yields as much as the lower ivies is naive and wrong. Keep in mind that this is a school that pays its top students a salary to go there. </p>

<p>So why does Duke have a lower yield that all the lower ivies? Because it simply isn’t as desirable as the lower ivies. If it were, Duke wouldn’t need to offer “merit” $$$. </p>

<p>Duke likes to sell itself as an ivy alternative; but it is still nothing but an ivy backup. Just check the cross-admit battles between Duke and the lower ivies. Duke loses out to all of them, except maybe Cornell.</p>

33

<p>^That is absolutely ridiculous and I can prove why Duke is not a backup to the lower Ivies. While most Ivy League applicants tend to come from the Northeast where there aren’t many good state schools to attend, a large chunk of Duke applicants tend to come from Virginia and North Carolina, which have terrific state schools that are much cheaper.</p>

<p>Duke has to deal with:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>UNC (attractive in-state option and most Duke admits would probably get major $$$ here with scholarships like the Morehead)</p></li>
<li><p>UVA (lots of kids apply from VA but UVA is a cheaper option in-state with scholarships like the Jefferson)</p></li>
<li><p>the rest of the Ivy League (HUGE LOCATION advantage because they are located closer to the major financial centers of DC, New York and Boston while Duke is located in Durham)</p></li>
<li><p>the racist stereotypes associated with the South (most people consider the area around Duke to be filled with racists, they think Duke is a conservative southern institution and Northerners just hate the South in general)</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Most Dartmouth applicants on the other hand only apply to other Ivy League and top liberal arts schools plus Duke and Stanford. They don’t have a “top” in-state public to compete with and their location in the Northeast is considered favorable to the East Coast lovers who apply to the Ivy League rather than the “dirty” and “racist” South.</p>

34

<p>Someone goes to dook.</p>

35

<p>“That is absolutely ridiculous and I can prove why Duke is not a backup to the lower Ivies. While most Ivy League applicants tend to come from the Northeast where there aren’t many good state schools to attend, a large chunk of Duke applicants tend to come from Virginia and North Carolina, which have terrific state schools that are much cheaper.”</p>

<p>True. But the lower ivies cannibalize each other and have to compete with HYP, to boot. Duke has little competition in the South because frankly speaking, most southern schools suck. Your main competition is Vandy. Enough said.</p>

36

<p>happymedstudent - stop trying to use yield as a proxy for desirability. Just looking at a yield number doesn’t tell close to the whole story. </p>

<p>A school’s admission strategy can differ. From what I’ve read about Duke, they seem intent on playing a “big numbers” admissions game - meaning, they’re looking to drum up as many applications as possible, but they generally recruit the most heavily on the east coast. Accordingly, their yield may suffer a bit bc the ivies have “home field advantage” along the east coast, and, based on location, Duke may then lose out to a Columbia or Brown. A student might be more likely to go to a great school two hours away, rather than a great school 11 hours away. </p>

<p>Now, if Duke decided to recruit much more heavily in the southeast, and focus hard on getting top talent from florida, georgia, etc. etc., it might fare better. From what I know about Duke though, it seems focused on racking up as many applications as possible, and it’s most promising method to fulfill this goal is to recruit hard on the college-crazy east coast. </p>

<p>Another big problem with yield generally is that, I’d imagine, the east coast has the highest, most condensed concentration of promising “ivy-like” talent. With pretty much all the top boarding and prep schools, great private schools, lots of high-powered public schools, the east coast churns out the greatest number of kids ivy+ schools want. Keep in mind there are probably only 4 or 5 truly national schools (HYPS, MIT), after that, location becomes a key factor. </p>

<p>So, any data on yield will be skewed toward the top east coast schools. This doesn’t mean that Duke is less prestigious or not as strong as a Dartmouth or Brown, it just means that, based on location and inertia or whatever keeps most kids rooted generally close to home, the yield stats will be skewed to east coast schools. </p>

<p>If there was more top talent located in the southeast, the stats might be different. Fact of the matter is, though, that most of the top high school talent hails from the east coast, and Duke recruits hard on the east coast. Accordingly, it always faces an uphill battle against the schools with home field advantage. </p>

<p>Put another way between schools I know well, on the east coast, I’m sure UPenn enjoys an upper hand over Northwestern in terms of cross-admit battles. At the top public schools in the midwest, however, it’s a completely different tale - a lot of top students are interested in staying around the area and going to NU. Of course, this is a different story when top midwestern kids get into NU and, say, Harvard. Then, it’s no contest. The only schools that enjoy true dominance across the nation are Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT. </p>

<p>Trying to draw distinctions between the lower ivies and their immediate non-ivy peers (Duke, Northwestern, etc.) through use of yield stats is a useless endeavor.</p>

37

<p>Cue7, </p>

<p>Actually I look at cross-admit battles and the Revealed Preference rankings much more than yields (which I know can be manipulated); both show that Duke lags behind the lower ivies except for Cornell, perhaps.</p>

<p>The lower ivies (except Cornell) also have lower acceptance rates than Duke. Acceptance rates are probably harder to manipulate than yield.</p>

38

<p>I agree with you that HYPSM are a cut above the rest. They are the only truly national (and international) schools. Duke and the lower ivies are still mostly regional schools.</p>

39

<p>Acceptance rate is directly tied to yield. Duke also suffers to its relatively poor location in Durham, NC.</p>

40

<p>

</p>

<p>I don’t believe Duke publishes data on where its applicants are from, but it does publish data on where its enrolled first-year class comes from. Only 15% come from North Carolina, another 21% from the rest of the Southeast. Another 15% come from New York-New England, 15% from Mid-Atlantic states (including Virginia, appropriately listed there since most are probably from the DC area), 10% from the Midwest, and 14% from the West. My guess is Duke’s yield among North Carolinians and Southeasterners is probably higher than its overall yield, and that its yield from the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and West is slightly lower than its overall rate. That’s because for people in the North and West, Duke IS mainly seen as a back-up to HYPS and the other Ivies—a very good one, to be sure, but I’ll bet it loses most of those cross-admit battles. Nothing to be ashamed of. There are some very good lower-yield schools in this category, e.g., Chicago, Northwestern, WUSTL, Emory, Johns Hopkins. And Duke does a little better than the others in this group, attracting slightly better students and landing them at a slightly higher rate. But its market position is what it is.</p>

<p>[Duke</a> University Admissions: Class of 2012 Profile](<a href=“http://www.admissions.duke.edu/jump/applying/who_2012profile.html]Duke”>http://www.admissions.duke.edu/jump/applying/who_2012profile.html)</p>