<p>I go to an elite East Coast public school that has roughly 15-20 Stanford applicants and 2-4 admits per year. This year it wasn't so good so some people say that Stanford "doesn't like" our school because some students who get in end up going to other schools. Can there be scome truth in this judging by similar events in other schools, or is it just a lame excuse that some people use?</p>
<p>I don’t know how much of a difference it makes in the big picture, but imo some definitely keep tabs on the yield rates of high schools. idk about other schools, but for instance two years ago my HS got 5 kids into MIT…and none went. so last year we got nada lol, though imo our applicants were just as strong. again, i dont know how much of that was coincidental, or if it just depends on the school. we have a near-perfect yield history for stanford, though, and this year we had a record 3 admits out of 7 for EA XD</p>
<p>My HS had an average of about 2 admits to Stanford per year, 1 to MIT, but 7-10 to Yale/Princeton/Harvard. About equal numbers apply to all those schools each year. So there’s something up, whatever it is. </p>
<p>It may just be that my HS did not produce the kinds of applicants that Stanford and MIT wants. For instance, although we have some of the best math and science classes in the state, there is almost zero emphasis on CS and entrepreneurship at my HS, probably because my HS envisions itself as more “elite” than those pursuits.</p>
<p>It could be, but it could also be that people will come up with all kinds of dubious narratives to soothe bruised egos.</p>
<p>^I don’t think it’s that dubious. Stanford and other top schools care immensely about their yield and cross-admit yield. </p>
<p>Motive? Check.
Odd results? Check.</p>
<p>Not saying that these theories are necessarily true, but they seem to have a shred of legitimacy.</p>
<p>Poorly substantiated, conspiracy-theory-style musings? Check.</p>
<p>But disappointed people will indulge in this every year, just as they insist that “their spot” was taken by some underserving student. Deja vu.</p>
<p>For cross-admit yield they tend to favor EA over RD applicants right?</p>
<p>The highly selective colleges all admit a higher percentage of EA than RD applicants, both because the EA yields tend to be higher, and because the “quality” of the applicant pools tends to be higher in EA–many EA applicants would have been admitted RD, and at Stanford, EA admits would certainly have been admitted in RD. </p>
<p>I notice that Harvard and Princeton both deferred a huge percentage of their EA applicants. I think Stanford’s method of deferring relatively few is better for everyone, since it allows most of the EA applicants to set their sites elsewhere.</p>
<p>But being a very competitive student and assuming that your qualifications don’t change at all between October and January, EA would give you a slight boost right?</p>
<p>^Not necessarily. For Stanford, a number of their EA slots are “reserved” (ugh) for hooked applicants. So while the pool might be smaller, the spots are fewer.</p>
<p>As in legacies, ahtletes, URMs etc.?</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s too much of a conspiracy theory. of course, it’s a stupid and useless concept to trust in to an extreme, but just theoretically if a high school gets in a relatively generous number of admits and none matriculate, why bother with that HS next year (from the univ.'s point of view)? they’re taking spots from other potential admits who WOULD matriculate.</p>
<p>^ yes, about the hooks. my school’s gotten 5 in early this year and aside from me and another kid, they all got in on hooks (1 URM, 2 recruited). it’s a dominant feature of the EA process, generally much less so in RD I think</p>
<p>The reason that the university would “bother” with that HS the next year is that the university (unlike some students apparently!) understand the statistical insignificance of such a minuscule amount of data. If the students from a certain HS basically <em>never</em> matriculated, maybe because of some bad relationship between the HS’s guidance counselors and the college’s admissions office or some such unlikely scenario, then conceivably it could affect a college’s view of that school, but what the college is trying to do is enroll the best class it can, year after year.</p>
<p>I’ve been on CC for more years than my join date will say, and I can tell you that this type of thread pops up every year in droves.</p>
<p>Stanford does not give or take preference based on your high school. It’s not in the admissions info, nor have adcoms said such in the past. In the OP, 15-20 apply and 2-4 are accepted; assuming 2 and 20, that’s a 10% acceptance rate, which is higher than the general acceptance rate (7%). Assuming 4 and 15, it’s about a 25% acceptance rate.</p>
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<p>No such spots are “reserved.” If anything, more hooked applicants apply early, but it’s not that Stanford reserves spots for them (if there are too many, they’re rejected/deferred and the like).</p>
<p>The numbers weren’t exact. I could probably check the exact stats on Naviance but I wouldn’t extrapolate just from those…</p>
<p>
Assuming you refer to the matriculation rate of a particular high school, low matriculation rates become statistically significant if they hold over a course of time. Say, for instance, a certain HS has on average 30% of its admits matriculate to Stanford over a 6 year span, with a 10% standard deviation. That would certainly be statistically significant compared to Stanford’s overall yield, no?</p>
<p>Then, one might question the statistical significance of a few matriculates on Stanford’s overall yield. Well, 25 more matriculates leads to a 1% increase in yield. Every percentage point counts in the yield game, and it’s not hard to imagine that Stanford could increase its matriculate pool by 100 (and 4 percentage points) just by gaming high schools even more. Of course at a certain point things would become a bit too obvious, indicating that some restraint is better.</p>
<p>And let’s not forget that Stanford prides itself on “beating” the other prestigious universities in terms of cross-admit yield. These have much smaller sample sizes, and a dozen or so extra cross-admitted matriculates would really sway the data. </p>
<p>
I’ll pretend you didn’t say this. If this were the case, international admissions would be need-blind, legacies and developmental admits would not receive a preference, and so on. What you should have wrote is this: Stanford is trying to maintain the best university. That mission often overlaps with admitting the best applicants, but not always. </p>
<p>
At least part of what you say is definitely not true. When Stanford breaks down its applicants, it assigns a number-rating denoting the quality of the HS. Also one of the foremost advantages of regional admissions counselors is a familiarity with the high schools in the region. Furthermore, Stanford breaks down its yield data into areas at least as small as Manhattan, indicating that local geography (and the associated HS) data are being examined. </p>
<p>I just don’t see how anyone can definitively say that HS preferences do not occur.</p>
<p>
I don’t think there’s a strict quota, but there is a form of quota. That’s why they like to defer legacies. If they admit too many early, and the RD legacy pool is strong, then there will either be too many legacy admits or they will have to reject the stronger RD legacy applicants. But if they reject too many legacies early, and the RD legacy pool doesn’t quite shape up, then they won’t have enough legacies or they will have to admit the weaker RD legacy applicants. </p>
<p>Therefore deferring legacies acts as a buffer of sorts, ensuring that the final number of legacies is relatively consistent over the years and the legacies who are admitted are as strong as possible.</p>