Those are the schools I’m referring to also. Drop a typical CC student into any of them and I don’t think they will be impacted much, if at all by retention. The ones who fall by the wayside at those schools tend to be the more marginal admits and not to be the caliber of student who hangs out here.
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Ok. I understand where you are on this. Thanks for clarifying.
There is a range of data families can look at when making a decisions beyond the T20/T50. Yes, there are many reasons why the data may look like it does.
There is also an increasingly wide range of students and families looking for information on CC. I try not to limit my thoughts to just the elite caliber refered to.
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I’ll put it this way then. Retention is directly correlated to one’s HS prep no matter where a student goes. Students who are less competitive never see the highly selective programs with high retention rates. Those rates, for the most part are a function of the student body quality, not the institution. There is one notable exception, FGLI students. Their retention is more likely at highly endowed, selective schools.
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I honestly never even looked at the yield of the schools D22 applied to, so just checked and most are in the low 20’s. Wasn’t surprised by larger state schools as lots of kids use them as safeties but was surprised by Villanova.
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Most less selective and non-prestigious schools do not meet full need, so typically a high proportion of drop outs are related to lack of affordability. I am not sure I know of any data on this, but IMO financial drop outs are higher than academic drop outs.
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I would focus less on absolute yield but significant downward trends. A school that yields 10% consistently is different than a school that yielded 30% say 5 years ago and has now dropped to 10%. There is a good chance something negative has happened which is worth further investigation.
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Public universities, with a few exceptions, tend not to play the “yield protection” game. A few may for OOS applicants, but none, AFAIK, does it for their in-state applicants.
Totally agree that these numbers have to be viewed in a dynamic and comparative manner.
High acceptance rate going up, low yield rate going down juxtaposed against greater financial aid (lower cost/revenue per student) to attract students is simply not sustainable.
Personally an 80% acceptance rate, and less than 20% yield with a rising “incentive” to lure students would concern me. If you are accepting 4/5 students and only 1/5 is matriculating you are faced with tough choices.
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One of the things we did consider was financial stability of the university, bond ratings, endowment size, etc… I think that is more important than yield. You don’t want to be at a school that suddenly appears on the “school closing” thread.
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I’ve never seen the yield rate of a candidate’s previous universities on a resume.
I’d worry more about the campus food rating than yield.
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Here is a list of schools with lowest yield. Many of them are also facing severe financial hardship. You may not be seeing the yield rate on resumes but unfortunately some of these schools might not be around in time.
I am not suggesting taken in isolation yield is a relevant factor but can serve as a leading indicator when viewed over time and compared to peer schools.
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I don’t disagree about the potential financial instability of low yield schools, but how many people on CC are looking at those 10 schools you linked to in that article?
The “peer” schools of this CC community are all going to be around for a while.
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I never thought of the CC community as so elitist😀 (Noted and sarcasm intended).
As previously mentioned +80% acceptance and 20% or less yield I probably just take a closer look to understand trend, finances and reason. Wouldn’t drive a decision but OP asked about alarm bell.
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Yes 
food and shelter matter. An important metric that could be assumed - Did the Freshman get on campus housing? (yikes, UTampa).
That was only on our radar last year since Virginia Tech was in the running and they had to take over a local hotel for the extra students the year before.
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The only one that a CC member might find desirable is Humboldt State, because it appears that it will become a CA polytechnic like Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Cal Poly Pomona. It’s an almost certainty that Humboldt will not close.
Now I’ll bet that Notre Dame de Namur University will close. The location and real estate are highly desirable.
I saw somewhere a metric based on the combination of acceptance rate and yield, to try to capture overall desirability, based on the theory that low admissions rate combined with high yield demonstrates how popular a school is, more so than either measure on its own.
Some schools have higher acceptance rates, but high yields, indicating a self-selection by the applicants. These tend to be quirkier schools.
Some have low acceptance rates and high yields, which indicate the AOs know how to pick their students (ED and overall competitiveness/eliteness plays a role)
Some have low acceptance rates but lower yields than others in their tier. If a kid gets into Dartmouth and Harvard, Harvard probably wins out more often and ergo the lower yield for Dartmouth. In other words, yield rate is only useful when compared to similarly situated schools. But only if you are deciding where to attend based on prestige.
Some schools have high acceptance rates and low yields. Those are the concerning ones, and my gut says particularly with small private colleges. They could be in financial trouble and/or not have the highest performing students.
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You don’t need to concoct elaborate metrics to figure out which colleges could be in financial trouble over the next few years. I am not aware of any college which has closed in the recent past where there weren’t ample red flags, warning signs, etc. ranging from difficulties with the various accreditation boards, difficulty extending a line of credit, a downgrade on the bond rating, an endowment going DOWN when every other endowment is taking advantage of the rising market, layoffs, etc. This information is not hard to find. You really don’t need to figure out your own “high acceptance/low yield” formula, the clear signs of an institution in distress are very apparent.
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With S21 we did not consider yield rate at all.
With the Ease of the Common App and Coalition it is easier than ever to apply to multiple Universities with very little extra work.
Students are applying on average to about 8 - 12 schools.
We were more concerned with Acceptance rate and student profile when looking at admission stats.
There’re other (major) reasons students may decide to choose one school over another. For example, a student may like the curriculum of one school better. Or geographic location, or…
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