<p>A couple come to mind, given that we are all speculating and analyzing but don’t have any direct information or statements from admission.</p>
<p>First, the publicity over California state budget cuts is resulting in a LOT of angst over whether that might impair the education or experience for students. Not that much from those at the school, but from applicants and people choosing between admissions offers. The consensus of those attending is that this is having light effects, but is not creating a significant change in the experience, in the education, or in the ability for most students to continue to graduate within four years. It does cut down hours of some service, reduce the number of sessions of some courses and sometimes undesirable times for classes are the result, but these are mild annoyances or less, for most people and for almost all the posts from students here. However, the external worry is likely going to have the result that some choose other schools, not having investigated the real situation deeply enough and thus reacting to the fear. That lowers the yield. </p>
<p>Every college, even Harvard, will offer spots to applicants who subsequently choose to attend elsewhere. To fill 1000 positions in Fall, a school has to send out more offers. They monitor the percentage of admissions offers that end up as incoming students. If a school has a 1/3 yeild, then to fill 1000 positions at the start of next year, they need to offer 3000 applicants a spot. If the yield drops to 25%, that same hypothetical school have to admit 4000, which would show up in a high school where typically 10 are admitted to the college but they see 13 or 14 offers. </p>
<p>It is reasonable to plan for a lower yield, which might be the basis for increased offers. Since we are hearing of students clearing the wait list already, prior to formal acceptance deadlines on May 1, this may be a real pattern affecting Cal. As part of the yield analysis, admissions committees can look at yield and yield patterns by region and high school. If a school has a high rate of acceptances, and students accepted from that school perform well at Cal, then admissions could decide to bump up the offers at this desirable high school; it would take fewer additional offers at high yeild schools than if they compensate by an across the board increase in offers. </p>
<p>Thus, two possible explanations - desirability of the school based on yield and past results of students, as well as compensation for a potentially lower yield this year. Add in the decision to compensate for funding reductions from the state by increasing the percentage of OOS students, to increase total fee revenues, and there are three factors, all of which could be operating, that would explain the change. </p>
<p>As to the mix of admissions - Cal is a holistic admissions school, where they want a mix of students to compose a desireable overall student body, which means that they don’t look monolithically at academic stats. Some get in because of attributes, attitudes and achievements that are desireble to the adcom although not directly related to GPA and/or standard scores. As long as the success rates of these students is acceptable, this helps with the ‘quality’ of the overall student body in terms of value they offer each other and the richness of views, skills and backgrounds that each student is exposed to. It also satisfies admissions commitee desires to do social engineering, helping even out economic differences, helping the disadvantaged, and rebalancing regional or other differences in society. Every year, when decisions come out, there are striking cases of both academically low people given spots and of hugely qualified top achievers who are rejected. That is what you see in a more holistic admissions environment, while schools that are more focused on pure academics and traditional EC resumes produce more predictable decisions.</p>