"After an unusually large freshmen class crowded into Harvard Yard this fall, Harvard College will accept fewer students into the Class of 2022 in hopes of admitting more students off the waitlist, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67 said in an interview this week.
Due to the unusually large class size for the Class of 2021, twenty-eight freshmen are living in DeWolfe, overflow housing typically reserved for upperclassmen. Fitzsimmons said the Admissions Office is aiming to accept ‘40 to 50 to maybe 100 people’ off the waitlist—last year, Harvard did not take anyone off the waitlist after a record number of admitted students matriculated. Fitzsimmons said the class was unusually large because fewer students deferred admission.
That change is one of several Fitzsimmons outlined for the upcoming admissions cycle in an interview with The Crimson on Tuesday." …
Not a surprise by any means; we’ve known since May that they were overenrolled for the Class of 2021, so it stranded to reason that they would accept fewer students this cycle.
I can see over-enrollment being an issue and wanting to correct for that, but why all the emphasis on taking students off the waitlist? Why would they really care to do that? Wouldn’t it be ideal to just enroll the right number AND minimize going to the waitlist?
The challenge is guessing the yield correctly, which is what got them into trouble last year. The yield was higher than expected and they did not go the waitlist **at all/b. So yeah, in a perfect world, they could assume a yield of X%, but only offer admissions based upon X-1%, but then they’d be criticized if they did that.
Sure, of course. I just find it odd to repeatedly mention the waitlist like it is some intentional strategy. More like the Admission Director’s fudge factor if he misses the mark. Seems like expectation management to me. Come May 1st, he can point back to that comment.
I think overenrolled I think of my freshman year at a state college many moons ago 212 students in my Biology class. They should have just given me the textbook and said learn this for the lecture. Large classes suck imo I don’t care how good the school is!!
On topic I agree it is all about guessing the yield.
A waitlist IS an intentional strategy that most college’s use, as yield (defined as the percent of students who choose to enroll in a particular college or university after having been offered admission) varies from year-to-year and is unpredictable. What other strategy would you suggest to manage yield in a non-binding admissions school?
Replace the word strategy with “benefit”, then. I think most colleges would prefer not to utilize their wait list if they had their druthers. Yes, it is a tool but I find it interesting that he seems to be touting its usage in his comments. It seems unusual to me.
You mean among current Harvard students? Not really. In the grand scheme of things, Harvard was not that overenrolled (~34 students), and it really only impacts first-years (i.e. 28 having to live in overflow housing, possibly impacting some getting into their first choice Freshman Seminar/Expos 20 section. For upperclassman, the larger first-year class won’t impact us until next year as the extra needs to be absorbed into the Houses. But 34 students amongst 12 houses will not be that dramatic.
I think the wait list can be useful for yield management, but I don’t think Harvard cares so much about that; they know that year in and year out they’re going to have around 80% of their offers accepted, and they’re not trying to impress anyone by showing how much higher their yield could be.
Where I think the wait list is more useful for Harvard is when they want to replace someone who declined an offer with someone else who has a similar profile (maybe another academically strong candidate who happens to be a talented contrabassoonist). If they’ve overadmitted by underestimating their yield, though, they have no beds left and lose the flexibility to take that person off the wait list when the first-choice candidate chooses to go somewhere else.
If it weren’t Harvard, which has a huge endowment, I’d say it’s so they can be need aware for the wait list kids. For schools that don’t have large endowments, the money has to come from somewhere to pay the electric bill.
@suzyQ7 at #5 - UChicago totally overenrolled as well. Official admission stats not yet released but we did find out that there are 1,740 enrolled first years (not including transfers - that’s another 35 or so). That’s out of about 2,250 admitted (we think) and almost 150 more than the previous year. They had to put upperclass students at a new luxury apartment complex nearby in order to make room in the res halls for the first years!
Tufts may hold the all-time record for miscalculating yield. In 1977 a new president (from Harvard) was appointed. Apparently he was more popular than expected. The number of students that chose to enroll was 350 more than expected (for a target class size of around 1200!). Tufts had to rent the Sheraton Commander hotel in Harvard Square (about 2 miles from Tufts). They put sophomores rather than freshman in the hotel. Freshman got a good deal out of it, because they lived on campus and they could take advantage of a continuous shuttle service to Harvard Square (which was a great place to hang out).
BU, BC, Northeastern and MIT were also over enrolled that year, but not as badly. Interestingly, Harvard was not.
It is best to err on the side of being conservative the year after you screw up your prediction. Harvard is doing the right thing, but I think they may be over explaining it for fear of being accused by their competitors of manipulating their admissions rate.
Overenrollment even at a modest number can be a big issue for a university like Harvard. Their average clients (students and parents) have very high expectation about pretty much everything, including housing. At a typical university, the university can put overenrolled students in a nearby hotel. I do not think Harvard can do it without being laughed at by its peers.
I think that it is much more likely that Harvard’s peers would be crying over their loss of cross admits and their precipitous drop in the revealed preference rankings,
…and their “clients” would be elated by the announcement that Harvard plans to win back the title of “most selective university” from Stanford by reducing their class size and drawing more heavily from the wait list.
@Questar they were expecting a high yield due to ED/EDII. It’s what happened with the two non-binding rounds that turned out differently than expected.
