When looking at colleges, do you consider its yield rate at all? If you see a low yield, does that make an alarm bell go off to wonder why so few choose to attend? And what percentage is considered low for a yield?
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Can only speak for my kids’s situation. We did not look at yield.
We found appropriate programs. Some were more selective, some were less selective.
While my kids both got into more selective schools, both ended up (their choice) at lesser selective schools that were the right fit. Naturally those with high acceptance rates typically won’t have high yields.
EDIT: I’ll never forget our first visit - UVA and I’m paraphrasing. The first thing the admissions presenter said was - a higher percentage of “accepted students” you will reject us than end up attending. (correction from a previous misstatement).
I can see folks who are mainly focused on pedigree using yield as a “barometer” but I imagine that’s a family to family situation. It’s not wrong if it’s important to you.
But in the end, you need to spend four years, day to day in a school, and to me, most important is you find an affordable school that is the right “fit” for your kids. A yield percentage doesn’t provide that - although there may be schools with a high yield that hit the mark in those areas for you.
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Some colleges with the highest yield rates are particularly appealing to a specific subset of the population (who see those colleges as their first choices), but unappealing to others (who do not apply). Examples include Brigham Young University and the United States Air Force Academy.
Some other colleges try to boost their yield rate by relying heavily on early decision admissions and/or otherwise emphasizing level of applicant’s interest in admissions.
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Admission yield can serve as an indicator of quality. However, it would be best to consider it in context. For example, Amherst’s recent yield of 39.8% is excellent, but not especially remarkable. This reflects the high level of the other colleges for which typical Amherst applicants are qualified, and to which they often also gain admission.
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UVA yield is typically around 40% and acceptance rate in the low 20% range. Meaning UVA rejects 75-80% of applicants versus 60% of accepted students rejecting UVA.
That being the case a bit of an odd comment from a UVA rep.
It’s been four years - I likely missed my words and will correct. I think what they were trying to say is - if they offered admission to 100 people, more of that 100 will tell them no than yet.
The memory stood but I likely explained it incorrectly.
Anyway, how does this help the OP?
The yield can be manipulated with higher ED acceptances and waitlists used to weed out additional demonstrated interest. We did not look at that in overall decision making, but became aware of the games played with a few schools in the process.
There are also schools that are outliers, like WPI, which may have higher acceptance and lower yield numbers along with high GPAs, high test scores, and single digit class ranks. They have highly qualified applicants self selecting to apply, but getting multiple offers including some at colleges with bigger endowments or state colleges with well funded honors programs.
The common app and recent surges in applications have also shifted numbers and yield may not be a helpful predictor of a student’s positive experience at a school.
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Yield played no part in our consideration of colleges to apply to or attend.
Honestly, I can’t think of it ever being mentioned by any students at school as a reason they use when they pick where they’re going and this with 20 years of working at a high school seeing many seniors head off to college.
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OP has asked a question that suggests an awareness and concern for yield as a measure. The actual numbers I provided corrected the false perception your comments implied that UVA has a yield that is below their acceptance rate.
Being factually correct about the subject matter helps the OP and avoids confusion and misunderstanding.
I owned it - however, the OP has asked this. My re-stating doesn’t change the argument - and i’ve yet to see your response to his question and I’m interested in learning from yours.
“When looking at colleges, do you consider its yield rate at all? If you see a low yield, does that make an alarm bell go off to wonder why so few choose to attend? And what percentage is considered low for a yield?”
As others have highlighted yield can be managed up through ED and WL and is only in part a function of where a school sits among peer institutions. Consequently I view it as largely irrelevant unless examined in context versus a specific peer.
Schools such as Tufts, JHU, Northwestern and Vanderbilt all have in recent history had yields in the 40% range as they compete for the highest tier of candidates while Ivies and Ivy plus tend to be in the 60-85% range while Emory is closer to 25% and Tulane at 45%. I highlight this cohort because there is likely a fair bit of overlap in applicants, disparity in the extent that some schools “manage” to a higher yield and all offer an “elite” experience with relatively low acceptance rates.
Take from those numbers what you will but I personally don’t view them as meaningful.
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Agreed!
The other colleges that may have higher yield rates, do because they are perceived to be more desirable. That doesn’t de facto mean they are so. That’s up to the applicant to decide if what the school offers beyond the ratings based reputation aligns with the experience they want to have. Personally, I don’t see it as a useful metric at all. It’s highly correlated to ranking which I, and many others find fairly specious.
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Some of your figures may either be incorrect or outdated. Northwestern has a yield rate in the mid-50% range, similar to Duke.
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Actually, wow, I looked this up after commenting on this and it looks like Northwestern’s yield is now in the low 60% range.
That said, I agree that one shouldn’t look at yield too closely beyond broad strokes. Schools like Kennesaw State, for example, have high yield rates for a diversity of reasons.
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Great example of how schools manipulate yield by accepting more of the class in binding ED.
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You are correct in that I was mixing some historic and some most recent and consequently wrong by generalizing. The specific citation I used for Northwestern was…
“ Admission Yield (Enrollment Rate) Changes
The average admission yield of the last 11 years is 47.85% where the current academic year yield is 52.03%. The yield, also known as enrollment rate is the percentage of admitted students who finally enrolled. The following table illustrates the changes in yield at Northwestern University from 2011 to 2021.”
| Year | Total | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-12 | 33.41% | 33.13% | 33.65% |
| 2012-13 | 37.79% | 37.63% | 37.95% |
| 2013-14 | 41.47% | 42.28% | 40.68% |
| 2014-15 | 46.26% | 47.10% | 45.48% |
| 2015-16 | 48.16% | 49.06% | 47.28% |
| 2016-17 | 53.03% | 53.61% | 52.49% |
| 2017-18 | 55.29% | 55.01% | 55.55% |
| 2018-19 | 56.43% | 54.07% | 58.64% |
| 2019-20 | 54.61% | 55.23% | 54.02% |
| 2020-21 | 52.03% | 51.92% | 52.12% |
| Average | 47.85% | 47.90% | 47.79% |
As mentioned I don’t attribute much significance to yield as a matrix and think of Northwestern as a super elite and distinguished school so once again apologies for any inadvertent error.
**I have edited my post to say “recent history”.
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I believe NU takes more kids in ED every year. Not sure where that will top out.Clearly that affects yield. According to their CDS from 2020-2021, they filled 37% of the class in ED.
Yield, especially stable yield, is important to colleges because it makes easier for them to plan (and for some of them, to brag). ED and ED2 guarantee the highest and the most stable yield for a college, so it isn’t surprising that they are popular with colleges that are obsessed with their yields. However, yield has little to do with the quality of a college education and certainly isn’t an indication that the college is a better fit for a student. IMO, it’s foolish for a student to choose a college based on its yield.
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That’s interesting…the NU paper reported over 50% of the class was filled in ED last year. Wonder if they break out recruited athletes differently on the CDS?
When my D applied to JHU, admissions told her flat out to apply early decision or expect a rejection. (Wasn’t her first choice so she didn’t apply ED and it was her only rejection. But at least they were honest about it ; )). Now JHU has added EDII.
OP -Clearly, we also didn’t consider yield at all in the college search.
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In downplaying the significance of yield we have largely focused our discussion on low admissions relatively high yield schools. In most of these cases as discussed yield is a product of some gamesmanship and strategy but doesn’t materially impact the quality of the student body.
I think yield does become meaningful when looking at already high acceptance rate schools who have low or declining yields.
For example if a school is accepting 75% of applicants and only yielding 20% they have little “wiggle” room to fill the class. They may be forced to dip into that 25% rejection pile out of necessity.
In practical terms they are likely already or may have to lower the standard for admission to matriculate enough students to stay economically viable. This would likely create a significant disparity between top students and marginal acceptance students and could have an adverse effect on reputation.
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