@bestmom888 “It’s a shame that the various college rankings have made “yield protection” so important that some of these high stat kids end up in the same schools as the known slackers in their graduating class”
Yield is not a factor in USWR rankings.
@adlgel, would your D be open to taking a semester off to see if she could get into Lehigh ED if that’s where she really wanted to go? I don’t remember where her safeties are, but could they be enrolled spring semester if the ED didn’t work out.
Is this senerio even possible? I don’t have any idea.
@suzyQ7 What is USWR? Anyway, I am not personally familiar with college rankings, I am just going by what people are saying here on cc about “yield protection” and why schools do it.
@bestmom888 there are a lot of posters who, intentionally or not, consider safeties beneath them. It comes across as arrogant, and it’s a problem because we have created kids that have worked hard and feel entitled to something for their hard work. Sometimes there is a reward, but sometimes there is disappointment. Guess what? That’s how life works. You can bust your butt at work and get passed over because someone else was a fraternity brother of the boss. It is something nearly everyone has experienced and it’s character building. Is it fair? Probably not, but it shouldn’t prevent someone from working hard. The next go round may be your turn.
And, as for those slackers in high school? Most will mature and you never know, one may be your doctor some day. Please ease up on the students that weren’t at the top of their class. You have no idea what their lives are like.
@lastone03 You seem angry… so ok, I’ll “ease up”, and thank you for instructing me on “how life works”
@brantly Just curious, what is unfair about a school choosing a large portion of its class from the ED pool? That is what ED is for. It clearly shows the school that these applicants are choosing that school as their #1.
@bestmom888 I’m not angry. I’m befuddled by your commentary. You post a lot about things you don’t fully understand.
This is simply not true. If your stats are too high above the school’s stats then the school may think it is a backup school for you. If your stats are 50% to 75% then it is not a true safety for you.
D1 had 2 true safeties - Rutgers and Trinity. Even then, Trinity called her up few days before they made an offer to see where they stood with her. They called on a good day because D1 was just rejected and WL by all of her top choices. She was a legacy at Colgate, but she didn’t apply during ED. As posted by someone here, as a legacy at Lehigh the kid was WL even though his/her stats were in line.
How far down should my kid go just so she could go to a school?
I do not believe my kid should spend (waste) 4 years of her life at a school that doesn’t offer enough rigor, and this goes beyond just the professors, it includes the students she would be having class discussions with, labs, group project, etc.have. When professors are told to bring energy bars to classes to keep students engaged (it was posted in say it here), I have an issue with that. Why would I pay sticker price for that?
Yield is an important factor to schools because it helps them manage their budget.
@lastone03 Most applicants who apply ED are not because the college is their #1 choice, but because ED gives them a better chance of being admitted. ED denies these applicants an opportunity to go to their true #1 choice. ED also deprives the colleges an opportunity to build a higher quality class with potentially more qualified applicants in the regular round.
@1NJParent I guess if it’s not their true #1, then why apply ED? I see where it could potentially be a conservative move, but I don’t really understand why anyone would do it if they don’t have a level of commitment for that school.
I’m going to say something hugely unpopular about safety schools, but it’s how I feel, so please don’t excoriate me. I think there is a real difference in outcome opportunities between schools of different categories. If you go to a lower ranked school where certain employers don’t come on campus to interview can you still get that job? Maybe, but you’ll have to work a lot harder to get it. So, if you have a kid who’s worked their head off in HS and has achieved, you think your kid has earned his/her spot at one of the schools that provides greater opportunities. Its really hard when Junior has all the stats to get in but doesn’t because he/she doesn’t match the holistic needs of an institution and gets denied at all the places where he/she statistically matches.
I do think that a lot of former second tier schools have really stepped up their game and now provide terrific opportunities, but now those schools are desperate to hold onto their ranking that they practice yield protection like crazy. So what’s a top stats kid to do, go for it with an app to a tippy top, or play it safe and ED to a former second tier school that’s now great?
For the kid who went for it and gets shut out of the first and second tier, they are now at the third tier, sitting next to their HS classmate who worked a lot less than them. Yes, they have all the knowledge that they brought with them from HS, and yes, they will probably shine academically if they don’t get discouraged that their hard work in HS didn’t get them where they wanted to go. One thing I think a lot of third tier schools are doing is trying to build centers of excellence within certain fields that match employment opportunities in their area. That’s really terrific because those schools can provide a terrific education and fantastic opportunities in those fields. But what if a kid has no idea what he/she wants? Their opportunities are more limited, and some of the outcomes in some areas of instruction might be poor.
And going back to being a new graduate looking for a job. I think if you are going for a job directly tied to your major - accounting, nursing, etc- even if you are a standout, if an employer has been burned before by the majority of hires from your school not being as prepared for the job as a majority of kids from another school, your chances of getting that job are going to be diminished because you come from a school that is weak in that particular field. It’s awfully hard to know about all the strengths and weaknesses of a particular school before you go there and decide what you want to major in.
Finally, look at the costs of going to college for a full pay family. Oftentimes a third tier school will give merit scholarships to get a top student. But these are getting hugely more competitive and you’re seeing a lot more kids who you would think would receive one, not getting one. The cost of attendance at the top tier schools is $275,000 for a 4 year program. How much is a family willing to pay for the various tiers? For me, I wouldn’t be willing to pay $275,000 for third tier, unless that school had something special for my kid that made it a unique value for my kid.
Sorry if this diatribe seems like it’s off-topic. But I see this as directly connected as to why so many families have the same list of schools, and why it’s so hard to find a safety.
Here’s one example of the consequences of having a problem with yield: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/12/12/oberlin-faces-budget-crunch-due-missed-enrollment-targets
I read an interesting article a while back about the drop in yield at many schools and the subsequent financial problems particularly when schools’ yield dropped below 20%. I’ll have too look for it but am not currently where I am able to do so.
@lastone03 Obviously these applicants are happy with their ED schools. However, that doesn’t mean the ED school is their true #1. In this extremely competitive environment, these applicants feel they need every bit of advantage.in college admission and ED is a very significant advantage at schools that offer them.
“How far down should my kid go just so she could go to a school?”
It depends on how much she wants to go to school the following fall.
I get that this is a legitimate issue - for my own kid, being in class with people who are there because they want to learn for the sake of learning is important. But just as in the dating and job markets, if the offers you’re getting (or not getting) aren’t meeting your expectations, you can either adjust your expectations or do without - there really aren’t any other options.
We have explained to our kid (whose personal preference is for a small LAC with at least a minimum quantity of kids of her ethnicity) that her worst case scenario school is the local open-enrollment community college, followed by the local less-prestigious branch of a non-prestigious directional public school, neither of which have any appreciable number of kids of her ethnicity, living at home and going to school nights and weekends while working full time. We’ve told her explicitly that that choice probably isn’t ideal, but that it would be fine, and she would be fine. I had some credibility when we told her that, because I did my undergrad at a lottery school, and then when I needed specific college courses for a career change professional licensure, I got those courses from the local open-enrollment community college, followed by the local less-prestigious branch of a non-prestigious directional public school, going to school nights and weekends while working full time. And it was fine, and I was fine.
“Why would I pay sticker price for that?”
I get that this is a legitimate issue, too - for my own kid, her likely safeties at this point are schools that have stats-based but not guaranteed automatic merit, and they are 100% unaffordable for us unless the NPC-predicted merit actually materializes. But your other options are to adjust your expectations or do without.
How is a school truly #1 with a student? When it was D2’s turn, we had D2 list her top 3-4 choices, figured out which one she had the highest probability of getting in ED and that’s where she ED. Did she ED at her true #1? No. Was she happy with her admission and 4 years experience? Yes.
I told her she had one ED and it had to be used wisely.
“I think if you are going for a job directly tied to your major - accounting, nursing, etc- even if you are a standout, if an employer has been burned before by the majority of hires from your school not being as prepared for the job as a majority of kids from another school, your chances of getting that job are going to be diminished because you come from a school that is weak in that particular field.”
I can speak specifically to accounting, because that’s my field. The local less-prestigious branch of a non-prestigious directional public school, where I went to school nights and weekends? One of the Big Four firms recruited there. The kids who were doing well in their classes had internships with the most-respected local and regional firms.
@oldfort Lots of students have #1 choices. Sometimes it is a legacy school. Sometimes they choose a number one from a college visit or camp experience. It is not that unusual.
@allyphoe I bet your directional school had a strong accounting program. Our local directional school is amazing in several areas and I think those graduates could be easily hired by national companies. But if you aren’t majoring in one of those several areas, then your degree doesn’t carry the same weight. If your kid doesn’t know what they want to major in, then I think the local directional isn’t a good fit.