Food for though (Yields)

[Cue7]

<p>Pizzagirl, I posted this earlier, and I’m just summarizing it here…</p>

<p>For more info on ED, you can read Princeton’s statement on abolishing its ED program, available here:</p>

<p><a href=“Princeton to end early admission”>Princeton to end early admission;

<p>For a more detailed view of just how ED programs greatly benefit a school but hurt the applicants, check out Chapter 17 of Jerome Karabel’s excellent work, “The Chosen: The Hidden history of Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.”</p>

<p>Also, I can’t find it online, but check out a working paper by 3 Harvard economists, entitled, “What Worms for the Early Bird: Early Admissions at Elite Colleges,” by Christopher Avery et al.</p>

<p>These studies and works find that, even with extremely generous financial aid programs, “Early Decision was discouraging students with financial need and that it was tending to bias a selection against those students.” (Karabel 522).</p>

<p>All the scholarship I can find generally indicates that ED benefits an institution significantly, but doesn’t benefit the general applicant pool in any specific way (except for the small subset of wealthy, advantaged applicants). </p>

<p>Maybe there are some other studies I’m missing, but I can’t find ANYTHING showing that ED helps applicants generally, and helps promote the interests colleges SAY they are promoting (increasing diversity, increasing socioeconomic diversity, building a more varied class, etc.).</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>Thanks. Makes intuitive sense, that’s for sure.</p>

[ewho]

<p>Cue, the ED is mainly to boost yield and go through less trouble during the admission process. The arguments by Princeton are garbage at core. If you are rich enough to feed yourself three meals a day, you are not afraid of the guy next to you who is looking for his next meal. Only HYPS can afford to do this, plus the trying Chicago (check Chicago’s yield).</p>

<p>“The Chosen” used old data and mainly targeting HYP. I am not sure how recent data the author used by the time he stopped in 2004. What happened since 2004? no EAs at Harvard and Princeton as Harvard tried to lead the new trend, while Yale and Stanford did not follow. Last year, one of elite feeder schools in NYC had nobody get into Harvard, and Yale and Stanford enrolled many who were supposed to be somewhere else. It is too early to tell this year’s results.</p>

[monydad]

<p>“There is a lot of ink spilled in trying to prove that ED admits are the equivalent (in terms of grades and SAT’s) of RD admits.”</p>

<p>Perhaps, but at an information session at a selective LAC the admissions officer out and out told us that the bar for RD applicants was substantially higher there than for ED applicants, and there was substantial advantage in applying ED.</p>

<p>He said that the nominal scores of the two groups are generally quite similar, but scores are but one item in an application and not the most important part at that. He said that, scores notwithstanding, when one reads the whole application, the RD pool is quite evidently substantially more competitive.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>Cool. As a full pay parent, I really hope my kids land on schools they prefer that offer ED so we can take advantage of any admissions boost AND have the whole thing wrapped up by winter break of senior year. The sense of closure, to me, is really a huge thing.</p>

[45_Percenter]

<p>

@Cue7

45 percenter, what frustrates me about Penn is, just like all the other shrewd and self-interested actors out there, Penn talks BIG about how it stands for diversity, how it wants more socioeconomic heterogeneity in its classes, how it wants to open a Penn education for all. </p>

<p>That rhetoric is what frustrates me. If Penn went about its business quietly, and looked to increase its status through careful admissions policies without all the double talk about altruistic admissions policies, then I’d have no problem with the school. After spending a few years on campus as a grad student though, and reading more of the scholarship on how self-serving top-colleges actually act, the constant speeches and self-flattery got old. </p>

<p>Basic point is, the more a school uses ED, the more the school works to advantage the advantaged. While all this goes on, top schools go on and on and on about how they want to open up opportunity for more promising kids. Promising applicants deserve to know more about how these institutions actually operate.

At least in Penn’s case, the statements regarding increasing access for students from lower income families are not empty rhetoric. As you may be aware, Penn President Amy Gutmann has long been a leading national scholar and advocate in the area of increasing access to higher education. A major goal of the “Penn Compact” she initiated when she became president in 2004, and of the “Making History” capital campaign announced in 2007, is increasing financial aid and outreach for applicants/students from lower-income families. Indeed, as part of this effort, Penn is increasing its undergraduate financial aid endowment by $350 million:</p>

<p>

Increasing Access
The Penn Compact, launched at the inauguration of President Amy Gutmann in October 2004, expresses the Penn community’s aspiration to move “From Excellence to Eminence.” The Compact has galvanized the University’s resolve to make a Penn education affordable to all outstanding students of high potential, while also providing a rich and welcoming educational environment in which all of our students can flourish.</p>

<p>Low- and middle-income students are underrepresented in enrollment at most of the nation’s highly selective colleges and universities, including Penn. A leading national advocate for socio-economic equity, President Gutmann has urged private colleges and universities to devote more attention and resources to enroll student bodies that are diverse in class background as well as in geography, gender, race, and religion.</p>

<p>Penn Boosting Undergraduate Financial Aid</p>

<p>•Relieving the loan burden on students
•Adding new scholarships
•Raising $350 million for undergraduate financial aid endowment</p>

<p>Penn has moved forward aggressively to empower talented, high-achieving students to chart their educational and career paths without regard to their financial resources. As one of the few private “need-blind” American universities, Penn accepts students based on academic achievement regardless of financial means. Penn offers aid packages that meet the full demonstrated financial need of all eligible students for a full four years.</p>

<p>In September 2008, all undergraduate students with calculated family incomes less than $100,000 will receive loan-free aid packages, while other students will receive a 10 percent reduction in need-based loans. By fall 2009, all undergraduate students eligible for financial aid will receive loan-free aid packages, regardless of family income. These initiatives build on previous initiatives to replace loans with grants for economically disadvantaged students whose families earn $60,000 or less. </p>

<p>Since 2003, generous donors have established and expanded hundreds of new aid scholarships at Penn, while our undergraduate financial aid endowment has more than doubled. Endowment income, however, currently covers only 19 percent of the costs of our financial aid program with the remaining funds coming from the University’s operating budget. That is why Penn’s five-year, $3.5 billion Making History campaign includes a $350 million goal for undergraduate financial aid. Paced by a $14 million gift from Trustee George Weiss, Penn’s alumni and friends have donated nearly $165 million for undergraduate financial aid since the beginning of the Campaign.</p>

<p>Penn also has launched a new outreach program to let hundreds of schools and thousands of students from low- and middle-income families know if they are accepted to Penn, they will receive a financial aid package with no loans. As a result of these efforts to improve access for lower-income families, Penn has already doubled the number of admitted high-need students who will receive loan-free packages.

</p>

<p>[Penn:</a> Compact: Increasing Access](<a href=“http://www.upenn.edu/compact/access.html]Penn:”>http://www.upenn.edu/compact/access.html)</p>

<p>Furthermore, as part of its efforts to dramatically increase undergraduate finanical aid and outreach, Penn has recently become one of the largest participants in the vaunted QuestBridge program:</p>

<p>[QuestBridge</a> Home Page](<a href=“http://www.questbridge.org/index.html]QuestBridge”>http://www.questbridge.org/index.html)</p>

<p>and just announced that it will be the first Ivy League school to partner with the Posse Foundation, which also places kids from low-income families at selective schools:</p>

<p>[Penn</a> Becomes First Ivy to Partner With Posse Foundation: University of Pennsylvania](<a href=“http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/article.php?id=1684]Penn”>http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/article.php?id=1684)</p>

<p>In sum, anyone who follows Penn these days should be keenly aware that significantly increasing undergraduate access and financial aid is one of THE major goals of the Gutmann administration, as it has been since her inauguration.</p>

<p>So regardless of how one feels about Penn’s use of ED, it should be clear that Penn’s oft-stated goal of increasing access to low-income students is much more than a mere public-relations ploy, with hundreds of millions of dollars and siginficant time and effort being devoted to its accomplishment. Would eliminating ED help to enhance that effort? Perhaps. But there is more than one way to skin the proverbial cat. :)</p>

[Cue7]

<p>ewho - but Karabel’s point that ED favors the advantaged still holds.</p>

<p>45 percenter - that’s great Penn is participating in those programs and increasing financial aid for the disadvantaged. The only problem, then, is Penn is pursuing contradictory goals. All the studies of ED show that, EVEN WITH extremely generous financial aid programs, ED still heavily favors the advantaged (see Chap 17 of Karabel’s work for more info on this). </p>

<p>The scholars who study ED have found some surprising results - even when schools with exceptionally generous financial aid programs, like Yale and Princeton when they still had ED, or, to a lesser extent, places like Penn and Northwestern, ED still works to bias a selection AGAINST the disadvantaged students. </p>

<p>Also, I’d really like to see some stats on a socioeconomic breakdown of Penn’s class, and whether there actually has been much improvement over time. When Karabel studied the economic diversity at Harvard, etc., the results were really startling. While there was a lot of racial diversity, pretty much EVERYONE at Harvard came from wealthy backgrounds. There wasn’t much in the way of really opening up Harvard to a broad swath of people.</p>

<p>I’d imagine that, even with all the lipservice and money for financial aid, Penn’s classes remain extremely homogeneous, with maybe only slight percentage change in diversity.</p>

[45_Percenter]

<p>But Cue7, it’s not ONLY about the financial aid, although that’s certainly a major part of it. It also depends on outreach efforts. These days at HYP, Penn, and other top schools, the applicants from the lower-income families are pretty much guaranteed comprehensive financial aid if they get accepted (and remember that admissions at these schools is need-blind). Accordingly, the only unfair disadvantage that ED might present for such applicants is their relative lack of awareness of the relevant schools–and their admissions processes–at the time ED applications must be filed. The remedy for this? Comprehensive and aggressive outreach to potential lower-income applicants early in the process, so that they can be better informed about a school’s ED program and the potential for financial aid. With truly effective outreach, you don’t have to throw the ED baby out with the bathwater to accomplish economic-diversity goals.</p>

<p>Keep in mind that for Penn, at least, this is very much a work in progress, but one that is of the highest priority–$350 million in additional endowment devoted exclusively to increased undergraduate financial aid ain’t exactly chump change (especially now). :)</p>

[Venkat89]

<p>^[1](<a href=“http://www.sfs.upenn.edu/paying/paying-pro-look-at-the-facts.htm]A”>http://www.sfs.upenn.edu/paying/paying-pro-look-at-the-facts.htm)
According to Penn, nearly 1000 students receive financial aid. Granted, half of the students receiving aid are from families whose incomes are above $90,000, I’d say Penn isn’t doing too bad. </p>

<p>[Financial</a> Aid: Frequently Asked Questions](<a href=“http://www.dartmouth.edu/apply/financialaid/fafaq.html]Financial”>http://www.dartmouth.edu/apply/financialaid/fafaq.html)
When looking at Dartmouth, they offer a higher percentage of students aid, but the average package is 2,000 less (possibly due to differences between Philly and Hanover). </p>

<p>I’ll agree that ED benefits those with money. However, I have plenty of friends at Penn who applied ED and recieved good financial aid.</p>

---

1. A</a> Look at the Facts, Comparing Penn’s Cost ↩︎

[juillet]

<p>I disagree with the premise of this original post to begin with.</p>

<p>Yield is not the indication of the desirability of a school. It’s simply the amount of percentage of people who attend once admitted. There are several reasons why people may not attend a school that they once applied to. One could be that they got into a “better” school; but others could be they can’t afford it, or their parents want them to attend somewhere else, or a myriad of other reasons.</p>

<p>Number two, you can’t make a categorical statement (“yield is maybe the best indication of the desirability of a school”) and then reject any cases that work against your statement simply because…they work against your statement. Why should we just “ignore these”? They’re not “anomalies.” Desirability isn’t just about prestige, sometimes it’s about religion and regional preference. This is exactly the reason why the statement you made in your first sentence is probably false.</p>

<p>Thirdly, top schools are not “top” because a lot of students who are admitted decide not to go. Michigan is a humongous state school; it has about 5 times as many undergrads as Columbia, for example. It makes sense that they would have many, many more applicants (the name recognition in the Midwest is probably much greater than Columbia’s name recognition in the Midwest). The fact that students decide not to go to Duke, Michigan, Berkeley and Chicago doesn’t strip these schools of their top school status because the whims of middle-class 18-year-olds don’t decide the value of a university. The research output, massive endowments, quality of classes, professors, programs/majors, and the students that are actually there are what determines that.</p>

<p>Personally I think yield is more or less useless in terms of deciding where YOU should go to school. It doesn’t matter whether 22% or 82% of the other 18-year-olds applying in your year decide to go somewhere if that place is perfect for you and you can afford it.</p>

[monydad]

<p>"As a full pay parent, I really hope my kids land on schools they prefer that offer ED so we can take advantage of any admissions boost AND have the whole thing wrapped up by winter break of senior year. The sense of closure, to me, is really a huge thing. "</p>

<p>Agree with all this, and that’s what D2 did.</p>

<p>However, if you don’t get in, you feel like crap, and then have to immediately crank out 10 RD applications at the last second. while at the same time studying for midterms, which you need to do well on for your RD schools. Despite this caution it was impossible to motivate D2 to really work on other applications once she applied ED. Thank goodness she got in.</p>

[siserune]

<p>

My main point was that yield or revealed preference may actually not show the desirability or prestige of the school, but rather shows the inertia that sets in for top talent on the east coast. Most east coast kids stay on the east coast for college, rather than traveling down to the south or heading to the midwest or whatever.</p>

<p>So if you look at yield, cross-admit battles, etc., they don’t really show that Dartmouth is more desirable than Duke or whatever, just that home field advantage means something in the student recruitment game.

</p>

<p>The Revealed Preference study tried valiantly to account for this by including in their calculation factors (covariates) such as geographic distance and in-state location. It didn’t work, but at least they tried.</p>

<p>For Duke vs Cornell in the RP pseudo-cross-admit rankings, see this earlier posting:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/698197-what-some-common-cross-admit-pairs-who-generally-ends-up-winning-8.html#post1062751204[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/698197-what-some-common-cross-admit-pairs-who-generally-ends-up-winning-8.html#post1062751204&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[siserune]

<p>

Actually I look at cross-admit battles and the Revealed Preference rankings much more than yields (which I know can be manipulated);

</p>

<p>The Revealed Preference ranking is pretty much a yield ranking, and is manipulable in all sorts of ways.</p>

[happymedstudent]

<p>^ Actually, the Revealed Preference ranking is the most “pure” and least manipulable ranking available.</p>

[siserune]

<p>^Read the paper before posting nonsense. The table of regression weights on the covariates is quite illuminating. </p>

<p>Admitting wealthier students is one simple strategy. There are many others.</p>