<p>False. You aren’t taking into account the admissions boost by applying ED. You see the reason your later example is wrong (the one about the cars) is because people can have either car. A better example is that someone says there’s a 50% chance of getting the car of my choice, but if I commit to the Mercedes before test driving either there’s a 80% chance of me getting the Mercedes. Now do you see why that is not an indication of desirability?
Someone who is applying ED may not have gotten into Penn had he decided to apply RD. How do you explain why Princeton’s yield dropped over 10% when it removed ED? Did it suddenly become less desirable over the course of a year? You know, the year when it stopped doing ED? Was that just a coincidence? Would <em>anyone</em> apply ED if the schools came out and said there was <em>no</em> admissions boost to doing so?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Even with its use of ED, Penn still accepts 2700-2800 RD applicants every year. That’s as many or more than virtually all of its peers.</p></li>
<li><p>Penn’s RD acceptance rate is similar to OR SLIGHTLY HIGHER than most of its peers.</p></li>
<li><p>Penn’s entering class size is significantly larger than virtually all of its peers (except for Cornell).</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Also, let me put it in a historical context. 25-30 years ago, Penn’s entering class size was about 1600 students. As it increased its class size (to the current 2400), it also increased the number of ED slots it uses to fill that class. The result? Penn has become a much more desirable, sought-after, highly regarded school, and it STILL accepts as many or more RD applicants as most of its peers. Seems like pretty much of a no-lose proposition all around. EXCEPT for Penn’s detractors, who continually knock the school for a variety of reasons, with its use of ED being a favorite.</p>
<p>I should add that along with growing its class size and increasing ED slots, Penn also has spent several BILLION (that’s with a “B”) dollars in the last 15 years to significantly improve its campus, surrounding neighborhood, undergraduate academic and extracurricular programs, etc., while leveraging for its undergraduate program its traditional strengths in such areas as interdisciplinary study, to the point where its RD yield is as good as or better than that all of its peers, except for HYPSM. And again, that’s with an effective RD class size (1200-1300 students), RD applicant pool (19,000 applicants), and RD acceptance pool (2700-2800 acceptees) that are comparable in size to most of its peers.</p>
<p>On the whole, it’s been a winning strategy, and one with which the vast majority of Penn students and alumni have been quite pleased. But I guess there will always be detractors–there’s a lot of resentment out there for winners and success. :)</p>
<p>Oh, and one other thing: Pizzagirl is definitely one of my CC heroes. ;)</p>
<p>Just so you know I’m not one of the people bashing Penn. If you’ll believe it, I very seriously considered applying ED to Jerome Fisher at Penn, but my parents decided at the last minute that committing myself too early would be a bad idea. </p>
<p>I just do not agree with the belief that you can compare yield between two schools when one offers ED and the other does not.</p>
So what’s the point? Penn’s forumla works for it–extremely well. And it still is able to grant RD acceptances to as many or more kids than most of its peers (including Stanford). Why this desire to impose one uniform admissions model on all schools? Isn’t there room for varying admissions policies among the top 20 or so schools? I must say, I really don’t get this condemnation of the admissions policies of other PRIVATE schools in a supposedly free-market system, especially in the case of a school like Penn which STILL admits as many OR MORE kids RD as the schools whose proponents tend to attack it.</p>
Agreed, it’s not really apples-to-apples. A better comparison might be both schools’ RD yields. However, even that doesn’t give a completely accurate picture, because it fails to account in any way for the applicants (in Penn’s case, 4,000 of them) who DID make the ED school their first AND ONLY choice, for WHATEVER reason.</p>
<p>By the way, did you get into Fisher and Penn RD? Just curious. :)</p>
<p>I have no problem with that statement. I imagine most Penn students and alumni wouldn’t have a problem with it either. Heck, I’d support Penn’s meeting all of its energy needs by burning baby seals if it would help it compete with its older, richer and more prestigious peers. Harvard can have the luxury of making “statements”. Penn can’t afford such things.</p>
<p>Penn will never, ever ever give up ED, nor should it.</p>
<p>Now here is where I simply must disagree with you in the strongest terms. While getting “happier” students is not the main purpose of ED (boosting yield and by corollary lowering acceptance rate is), it IS very much a real result of the process.</p>
<p>Well, then, said person presumably thought that Penn was desirable enough – see that word? desirable? – to forego applying to other schools and roll the dice with the Penn ED. Which means – they found the option of “Penn ED and commit” more desirable than “Penn-and-a-bunch-of-other-places RD.” Which means that they had preference for Penn over those other schools. If they didn’t have that preference – if Penn wasn’t desirable enough for them to have ED’d – they wouldn’t have done so. No one has put a gun to anyone’s head and forced them to go ED at a school. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Of course Princeton didn’t suddenly become less desirable over that year. Princeton is the same school today with a X% yield as it was 2 years ago with an (X+10) yield. Which is THE WHOLE POINT. It’s an irrelevant number for an applicant to concern himself or herself with in the first place. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>LOL. You have got to be kidding. Of course. Even if there were no admissions boost to doing so, there are lots of people who have strong first-choice preferences and would prefer to have the whole thing sewn up by Christmas. I have two rising hs juniors. Finaid is not an issue, and I would LOVE for them to go ED wherever they choose next year, regardless of level of admission rate bump, and be done. If someone has a preference, why not just go with it? And if the school allows lock-in like ED does … why is that bad?</p>
<p>Sure it is. Obviously in this case, if you accept the offer, the Mercedes is desirable enough that you’re willing to commit to it before even taking a chance on getting the BMW. Bottom line is, no one is forced to apply ED anywhere. Penn’s ED success is because people like it and want to lock into it. Harvard and Princeton had their own reasons for choosing to abolish ED; that’s cool, but that’s irrelevant to Penn.</p>
<p>But here’s the thing – you don’t NEED to. It’s not relevant to you as an applicant. It’s only relevant to each school’s administration and how they prefer to run things.</p>
<p>Look at the Duke / Dartmouth example. Two schools who attract similarly qualified student bodies. One has a yield rate 10 points above the other. What does that yield rate mean for someone accepted to both who is deciding between the two? Absolutely nothing. It adds nothing to the decision-making process.</p>
<p>45 percenter, actually I ended up not applying since I had procastinated with my RD apps while waiting for my early action decision. Penn had a lot of essays, and Jerome fisher had even more. I was too lazy :/</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, well obviously the yield rate doesn’t matter to an applicant, or to me obviously. I was just arguing that if we were to compare yields you’d have to take out ED.</p>
<p>But if you took College A without ED and figured its RD yield rate, and took College B that had ED and figured its RD yield rate, those two RD rates aren’t apples to apples either.</p>
<p>In the case of College A, those people who love-love-loved it, so much that they “suicided” and / or didn’t seriously consider any other college (e.g., any other apps were token backups) are counted in that RD yield. (These are people who would have ED’d if they could have.)</p>
<p>In the case of College B, those same kinds of people <em>aren’t</em> counted in the RD yield since they already “pledged their love” during the ED process. </p>
<p>College A’s RD yield isn’t comparable to College B’s RD yield, nor is it comparable to College B’s total yield. Really, I think yields are only comparable (and even then to some extent) with colleges that have the same ED / RD type of structure. So that leaves out places that do 2 rounds of ED, or have EA, or SCEA.</p>
<p>And, again, the yield only tells me what <em>other</em> people think and do, which is so completely irrelevant to any given applicant.</p>
<p>Extrapolating a global meaning from a single statistic analyzed in a vacuum is foolhardy at best and dangerous at worst. The OP started this thread by suggesting that the quality of education at various institutions could be judged by their yield. He was particularly dismissive of BC, BU and Tulane, leading me to think that he may have a personal axe to grind with those schools. Yield may serve as a possible indicator of desirability or, God help me, prestige, but without more data, (cross admits, financial aid packages, comparative strength of individual programs, etc.), yield as a measure of quality is nonsensical.</p>
<p>The measure of a school can be seen in the statistical profile of attending students. BC’s profile shows 80% of accepted students were top 10% in their high school class and they posted an average SAT of 2005 and/or ACT of 30. That is the caliber of student you will be going to school with, whether the class was populated as a result of a 60%, 29% or 1% yield is irrelevant.</p>
<p>As far as the discussion of ED, I frankly don’t understand the issues. An individual willing to cede his/her freedom of choice gets access to the entire pool of openings at an individual college. The school gets to populate a portion of its class with students that say they want to be there. Furthermore there is no evidence that these students are of a lower quality, (<a href=“http://thedartmouth.com/2009/01/05/news/ed);%5B/url%5D”>http://thedartmouth.com/2009/01/05/news/ed);</a> in fact they seem to be average (50th%-tile) for any given institution. And why wouldn’t they be?</p>
<p>It’s in the best interest of the school to admit students who have a reasonable chance of succeeding. It’s in their best interest to choose from the ED pool because these candidates have stated a loud and clear (read: legally binding) preference for the school. Frankly, if there are enough qualified candidates, it’s in their best interest to populate the entire class from ED applicants.</p>
<p>Finally, let’s remember that ED doesn’t preclude you from applying somewhere else. If you are deferred or rejected by your ED choice, you are free to apply anywhere you like. Giving up your freedom of choice is only temporary and comes back to you IF you get rejected, (which you most likely would have been even if you had applied RD). As for ED’s impact on yield, I agree wholeheartedly with pizzagirl, a yes is a yes regardless of when in the process it comes.</p>
<p>Exactly. It’s rather stupid to suggest that “yes, I love you over someone else who also admitted me” is more meaningful of a measure of desirability than “yes, I love you so much that I don’t even wish to apply elsewhere, unless you reject me.” </p>
<p>The fact that ED involves applicants making a <em>binding commitment to attend</em> IS indeed a measure of “desirability.”</p>
<p>Curiouslee, I was indeed defending Penn. But I didn’t attend it. In fact, I turned down Penn to attend (gulp) a non-Ivy. Imagine that!!</p>
<p>Yes; I also applied / was admitted to both schools 20 years ago, so who knows what the policies were back then. I have two kids now who will be going through the process. I <em>want</em> them to find a range of schools that they find desirable, and ideally enough to apply ED. But I can’t imagine using the yield in any way, shape or form in our determination of schools to apply to or attend. Again, yield is <em>what other people do with acceptances at a given college.</em> Which is irrelevant to <em>me</em> and provides me with no guidelines as to what to do.</p>