Yes - that’s it! Draw rate: yield%/accept%
Thank you!
Tldr: the number of students in the applicant pool doesn’t change much over time. If you get more students applying you may drop your acceptance rate, but it doesn’t mean more bodies will show up on campus in the fall. Your yield will suffer when students with multiple acceptances choose elsewhere. Draw rate factors all of those dynamics in.
Of course. That’s my point. If you are looking for prestige, look at yield (at least between peer schools). There’s no other reason to look at it. It is utterly irrelevant to curriculum considerations. If you’re choosing based on curriculum you can completely ignore yield.
That seems way too simplistic, even for a student who is chasing prestige, and prestige only.
I don’t disagree- it is out there as a metric and people can consider it if they want in chancing themselves or for whatever purposes people think it is useful. I have no investment in it whatsoever. Other than it is interesting.
It is less simplistic than either yield or acceptance rate on its own.
OP again. The list of schools with the top 10 lowest yield include two colleges that likely would have made the first cut of “which colleges we should investigate more to see if you’re interested.” We’re nowhere near the point of starting to make up that list, but there are some preliminary indications that it would be best for DS to be closer to home, ideally within 3 hours and maybe 5 hours or a frequent direct flight away. Unfortunately, where we live there is not the same abundance of quality higher education institutions as elsewhere, like in some other parts of the country. Unfortunately, the little alarms going off in my head seem to have been justified.
As there is a strong link between the type of student accepted (finances & academic preparation) on retention and graduation measures, we will continue to try and tease out the quality of the university’s supports and academics away from those other factors. Unfortunately, I have yet to find any kind of resource similar to CC for colleges that are not elite. Although DS would probably make it into a T50 or T100 institution, there’s only 1 within 5 hours of us, I believe. And wherever he goes, we want to make sure it is a place where he feels successful in life.
If anyone knows of any resources on non-elite institutions, I’m all ears!
not every kid on CC is gunning for Dartmouth, Berkeley or Michigan even though on some days it feels like they are. Austen- you’ll probably find parents who are familiar with some of the schools you are thinking about.
Over the years I remember trying to be helpful to parents looking for a college for their C- /D student, we’ve had kids with various learning issues, we’ve had kids with medical issues that required them staying close to home and figuring out the best option within a one hour drive to their medical team…
We can probably be your resource!
Some resources we have used to evaluate the long-term health and likely resources of a school include the Forbes financial grades of institutions:
And we also look at the non-scientific grades and reviews on Niche to get a sense of the vibe of each school, what the students tend to complain about, and how they describe themselves, to see if it seems like a potential match.
But in the end (to paraphrase someone else’s great analogy), it does feel like you are picking a car to buy when you’ve never driven or even ridden in one.
Thank you, @blossom for your suggestion and encouragement. We’re still a long ways away, but when the time gets closer, I will remember that.
Pertaining to the original topic, the Forbes article was discussing how Oglethorpe went from a financial health grade of F in 2016 to a B+ in 2021. In the description it mentioned that in 2016, “Just 11% of the students it admitted for the 2013-14 year chose to attend, a dangerously low yield figure,” while in describing the turnaround indicates that the yield is now 26%. (The data for 2021 is from 2018 & 2019.) So certainly yields below 10% should be alarming, and perhaps anything below 20% is concerning?
For curiosity’s sake I combined the colleges with the lowest yields with their Forbes financial health grade:
• Paine College, 5% yield, N/A (FT population below 500)
• New England College, 5% yield, C-
• Humboldt State University, 6% yield, N/A (Forbes did not grade publics)
• Millsaps College, 6% yield, B
• University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, 6% yield, C+
• Mary Baldwin University, 6% yield, D
• Notre Dame de Namur University, 7% yield, C
• Wingate University, 7% yield, C-
• Our Lady of the Lake University, 7% yield, C-
• Spring Hill College, 8% yield, D
So here is the grade distribution of the financial health scores:
• B, 1
• C+, 1
• C, 1
• C-, 3
• D, 2
• N/A, 2 (one too small at 189 FT students and one is public)
So a low yield but a relatively strong financial standing (like Millsaps) would likely remain in contention for our family, but one with a low yield and poor financial health would not.
Here is another thread that may be of interest - non elite 
The 3.0 to 3.4 is in reference to GPA.
And here is a short article in praise of the non-elite.
Case Western Reserve University has a non ED yield rate of about 11%. Being a backup choice for places like MIT, JHU, etc means that you are a really good school, but it wrecks havoc on your yield.
If a school is attractive enough to be in the mix for a student, it gets an application from that student. If that student has an option they like better - for reasons including FA, location, etc. - that school will not yield that student. As more students feel the need to apply to more schools, and presumably more where they have a chance, they will decline more offers. Few schools decline strong applicants who have submitted good, thoughtful apps because they would be happy to have them in their student body. Yet the schools know their odds of yielding those students is slim.
@Eeyore123 's example of case western is spot on.
Schools that cannot deal with major overenrollment (small, rural) often fill half the class through ED to ensure that they have the frame of the class pretty solidly built before they admit students who can turn them down (and then, most plan to use their WL for the last few). Likewise, some of the prestigious schools that would likely be competitors of Harvard, etc also make good use of ED to build out their class. This changes yield. But the schools are effectively practicing good enrollment management practices.
The schools themselves have a much better sense of who they are likely to yield. As an applicant, this stat would not make a huge difference to me. Every student who comes here asking "Trinity or Bentley " or “Duke or UIUC” is impacting yield at one of those schools. Yet you only need read the responses to understand that what makes one a better choice for an applicant varies.
On the other side Humboldt State is presumably a safety valve for other Cal State schools. You filled out the app aspiring SDSU but throw in a few more.
Enough kids do that but get into their top choice and they’re not coming to you.
I loved the CWRU stat as it was able to be defined to just RD.
Too bad all schools don’t list. Apps. Accepted. Enrolled
by each application status (ED, EA, RD)
Case Western’s non ED yield is 11%. In looking at the draw rate link from above, some quick math shows that in 2019 Case Western had a 17% yield overall. Looking at Forbes’ health grades, Case Western has an A-. It also has a 30% acceptance rate. Here, yield is an effect of its competitors and various factors, but would not affect our family’s decision of wanting to apply there.
Mary Baldwin University has a 6% overall yield and a D for financial health from Forbes. It has an 87% acceptance rate. This raises serious concerns about the sustainability of the organization and what measures are being taken to remain afloat. Thus, in this situation, yield would influence our decision on whether to apply, and certainly whether to enroll if accepted.
I am surprised Case’s yield is so low, mainly because I’ve never known a kid who went there who didn’t love the school!!!
If desired, you can calculate RD admission yield yourself for colleges of interest from their Common Data Sets. You may need to assume an ED yield in the vicinity of 100%.
We didn’t consider yield, not even a little bit. I may have been aware of it for Williams and Amherst, but it wasn’t anything of importance for us. I found the info on schools they were likely to choose over another school (what is that called anyone?) more of a curiosity than anything.
You may want to view the site below, which characterizes schools along a spectrum: Thrive, Survive, Struggle, Challenged. Perhaps more so than other sources on this topic, the information appears to be somewhat preliminary, experimental and speculative, however. For context, this quadrant image includes various examples:
Actual lol at Brown in the “survive” quadrant
Revealed preference.
