<p>I was reading another post, and they mentioned that approx 300 people are admitted for 150 spots. Why would they do this? I mean, I understand that some will get accepted to more than one school. But what if 200 kids accepted the admission, and they are overrun by 50 kids? </p>
<p>Also, is there any chance of schools going to the waitlist when they have practices like this? Or is the waitlist just an easy let down?</p>
<p>Since the schools have been doing this for years, they know that they have an average “yield” (that is the term for people who accept offer of admission) of X%…so they factor that into their calculations.</p>
<p>It the projected yield off from year to year? Of course…which is why you have doubles rooms turned into triples some years and people come off the wait list in others.</p>
<p>Any mention of admitting twice as many students is clearly an exaggeration. All schools have a formula for their admits and expected yields. Last year I read that Andover had an unexpected yield of 84% (the expected was 79%) which did lead to some triples in the dorms.</p>
<p>Waitlist = Denied
That is a very frustrating experience. Now that I’m thinking about it, I realize that we never heard from Hotchkiss. Other schools let us know after April 10 that they would not be going to the wait list.</p>
<p>Many schools have yields below 50%, so admitting 300 students for 150 spots is realistic. </p>
<p>Another way that schools handle a higher than expected yield is by having a smaller freshman class. For example, my kids’ school normally has 80 in the freshman class and 100 in the others. If the actual yield is higher than expected for the freshman class one year, they can admit fewer students for the sophomore class the next year.</p>
<p>I think they’re always adjusting slightly (which is the whole reason for the wait list). I know Deerfield usually has beds reserved in each dorm for day students to sleep over-- but all those beds in the underclassmen dorms were given to boarders this year because their yield last year was greater than expected (I think there are also more doubles than usual – most dorms there are usually singles). They said they expect to adjust their admission numbers over the next couple of years to slowly get those beds back.</p>