Magnitude of "summer melt" (percentage of students who make enrollment deposits but do not enroll)

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Here is a page from UC Merced:

https://cie.ucmerced.edu/undergraduate-applicants-admits-enrollments

On the “Table: Single Year by Major” and “Table: Annual by Characteristic”, it shows, applicants, admits, SIR_Y, and enrollments. SIR_Y is the number or percentage of admits who make enrollment deposits; the percentage is conventionally called yield (SIR = “statement of intent to register”).

For fall 2022 entering students, note that SIR_Y → enrollments is only 72% for regular frosh and lower for other groups of applicants / admits (“referral” refers to UC ELC or top 9% statewide applicants referred to UC Merced after being shut out of all UC campuses they explicitly applied to). This means that “summer melt” at UC Merced is >28%. Presumably, this means that many SIR_Y students got off a waitlist, decided to switch to a community college, or decided not to attend college at all.

How large is “summer melt” at other colleges?

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Ugh. Summer melt is the worst. I worked at a very small grad school, and my colleague & I worked incredibly hard throughout the summer trying to keep students engaged so that we didn’t lose them to summer melt. In doing so, we were more likely to find out that they had decided to enroll elsewhere (or sometimes, not attend grad school that year or at all). The earlier we found out, the more likely we were to be able to enroll someone from the waitlist. Although some schools do over enroll in order to account for summer melt, it’s very important for students who change their mind to let a school know that they won’t matriculate … as soon as they make that decision.

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