@Itisjustschool That is exactly it.
It isn’t the increase in applications per student that is causing this impact. It is the change in behavior of top students. As they apply to more and more schools, the yields are relatively stable at the top schools, but they are falling at weaker/backup schools, so the average yield isn’t changing, but it is being reallocated among the participants. That means that the strategy of top schools to encourage more students to apply is not entirely marketing driven. In addition to driving down their acceptance rate to boost prestige, they are also actually finding more outstanding candidates in the pile.