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Just as nervously, colleges facing a financial landscape they have never seen before are trying to figure out how many students to accept, and how many students will accept them.</p>
<p>Typically, they rely on statistical models to predict which students will take them up on their offers to attend. But this year, with the economy turning parents and students into bargain hunters, demographics changing and unexpected jolts in the price of gas and the number of applications, they have little faith on those models.</p>
<p>Trying to hit those numbers is like trying to hit a hot tub when youre skydiving from 30,000 feet, said Jennifer Delahunty, dean of admissions and financial aid at Kenyon College in Ohio. Im going to go to church every day in April. </p>
<p>...</p>
<p>But all that has changed. For students, the uncertainty could be good news: colleges will admit more students, offer more generous financial aid,and, in some cases, send acceptance letters a few weeks earlier. Then again, it could prolong the agony: some institutions say they will rely more on their waiting lists. But there is no question, admissions officers say, that this year is more of a students market.
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<p>Does anyone know what effect will this have, if any, on transfer admissions?</p>
<p>If less freshmen yield than they expect, I would assume the university would accept more transfers since there are more vacant spots.
But then again, I don't know if freshmen spots are considered in the same category as transfers, and maybe transfers only take the spots of however many current students decide to leave.</p>
<p>The most selective being the most in demand, will have the least fall out. State schools will be in more demand as kids move away from privates and it's a double whammy as many are in crisis and capping admissions. I think it will be harder to get into good state schools and their stats will rise.</p>
<p>The real advantage for transfers should be at private colleges, but not the very top ones that offer good need based aid, they will be more popular than ever. Stanford's applications went up 20% and Dartmouth's 10% this year after bettering their aid policies.</p>
<p>Full pay students will get in much more easily to those on the level of Oberlin and Kenyon. Many parents will simply not fork over top dollar for schools much below an ivy. These schools will also offer more merit aid, a 'discount', to make their prices closer to their state school competitors.</p>
<p>I like xfer101's logic, but I think it'll depend on more on a specific University's policies. For example, yield might be lower, but then they can just take more freshmen off the waitlist. It really depends. Lest we forget that Columbia has had the highest freshmen retention in the Ivy League (alongside Yale) for years, and they'd been accepting 1.5% of their transfer applicants before deciding to allot more spots (so that it's more like 5-6% now).</p>
<p>it may have an effect on transfer
but it is definately a different category from freshmen
it all depends on how many transfers there are and are the colleges willing to accept more transfer.</p>