<p>In thinking about the various college rankings, and their flaws, I came up with the following concept: divide the Yield by the Admissions Rate. Perhaps this has been suggested before, but I haven't seen it. </p>
<p>The yield is an indicator of student selection amongst accepted students. When divided by the admissions rate, it normalizes for how selective the school is in choosing their students. The result is fascinating. For example, Harvard is 79% yield / 8% acceptance rate = 9.88. Princeton is 59/10 = 5.9, etc.</p>
<p>In looking through this, it is not surprising in many places, but there are a few very interesting "shifts" from standard rankings. </p>
<p>Caveats: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>This is NOT a comprehensive list. I have listed 55 schools that I selected to test this out, mostly amongst the most selective with a few less selective schools scattered in to see how this works lower down the USNWR scale. Perhaps someone with access to a database of all the yields/admission rates could make a more complete list.</p></li>
<li><p>I used the College P*Rowler percentages, which have no decimal digits. A more accurate result could be obtained from the actual numbers of accepted/attending students from the Common Data Sets.</p></li>
<li><p>I hand copied these and didn't check the numbers, so it is possible that I made an error or two. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Here they are, with the ratio</p>
<p>Harvard 9.88<br>
Stanford 7.89<br>
Yale 6.90<br>
Princeton 5.90<br>
MIT 5.50<br>
Columbia 5.36<br>
Brown 3.93<br>
Dartmouth 3.93<br>
University of Pennsylvania 3.71<br>
Amherst 2.53<br>
Williams 2.47<br>
Washington and Lee 2.47<br>
Pomona 2.44<br>
Swarthmore 2.44<br>
Georgetown 2.37<br>
Bowdoin 2.32<br>
Cornell 2.19<br>
Claremont McKenna 2.11<br>
Middlebury 2.10<br>
Caltech 2.00<br>
Notre Dame 2.00<br>
Duke 1.83<br>
Berkeley 1.78<br>
Barnard 1.68<br>
Davidson 1.65<br>
USC 1.59<br>
Rice 1.52<br>
Vanderbilt 1.48<br>
Vassar 1.40<br>
Colgate 1.38<br>
Haverford 1.37<br>
New York University 1.37<br>
Washington University 1.36<br>
Chicago 1.36<br>
Carleton 1.33<br>
Wesleyan 1.30<br>
Tufts 1.28<br>
Brown 1.26<br>
Northwestern 1.26<br>
Johns Hopkins 1.15<br>
Wellesley 1.14<br>
Emory 1.11<br>
Michigan 1.10<br>
Boston College 1.04<br>
Oberlin 1.03<br>
Harvey Mudd 1.00<br>
Brandeis 0.79<br>
Carnegie Mellon 0.79<br>
Smith 0.75<br>
Lafayette 0.68<br>
Trinity 0.67<br>
Rensselaer 0.61<br>
Rochester 0.61<br>
Mt. Holyoke 0.60<br>
Boston University 0.36</p>
<p>I like this. quite interesting.
One thing to consider though is that some lower tier schools are competing for different applicants. They may rack up a higher “desirability score”, but simply because many of their applicants didnt get in/apply to better schools that they may prefer to attend.</p>
<p>Naval Academy: 5.93<br>
US Military Academy (West Point): 4.94
Colorado College: 1.54
Bard: 1.52
Bucknell: 1.33
Thomas Aquinas: 1.06
VMI: .89
Sweet Briar: .46</p>
<p>To #2@000ace000:
Yes, I agree, although it seems reasonably solid. You could come up with a multiplier for the caliber of the students (SATs, for example), but this would be difficult (and very subjective) to calibrate. Perhaps it works best “within” a class of schools.</p>
<p>BYU is the strict Mormon school. While Utah and Utah State also have a big Mormon population, my friends in Utah tell me that all the devoted Mormons want to go to BYU, because its student body more strictly adheres to Mormon values.</p>
<p>This is interesting… I’ve long thought that the relationship between a school’s acceptance rate and a school’s yield rate means something… I’m just not sure what.</p>
<p>Some surprises (for me) from the Mathacle blog:</p>
<p>Caltech at #23 (2.00 ratio)
Cornell at #20 (2.19) with Dartmouth as the next higher Ivy at #10, 3.77
Middlebury (2.59) above Amherst (2.53) and Williams (2.47)
Washington and Lee tied with Williams (2.47)
Univ. Florida at #34, (1.51)</p>
<p>Thanks for the link, I knew that I’d seen the YAR stats before. </p>
<p>As others have mentioned, the numbers are interesting but are only meaningful when looking at peer relationships. For example, looking at a LAC with two separate ED periods versus a public with none is apples and bicycles. </p>
<p>Still, it’s interesting to see SOME results from different schools as well. Take Skidmore College (Div III) 30% 30% 1.00 compared with The College of the Holy Cross (Div. 1) 34% 30% 0.87. I would have lost that bet as I would have guessed that Division I Athletic scholarships + Early Decision + pre-selecting applicants comfortable with a Jesuit school education would trump Skidmore’s Early Decision. My takeaway is that Skidmore College is doing something right in attracting a selective group of applicants that really want to be there. </p>
<p>Even comparing peer level schools I’d be cautious about making too much of differences. As a Northeastern alum, I enjoy seeing Northeastern about 100 places higher in the rankings than Boston University AND with BOTH a higher yield and lower acceptance rates. </p>
<p>Northeastern 35% 23% 0.66
Boston Univ. 54% 20% 0.37</p>
<p>But, the end result is still peer level students at peer level schools. The only thing I would question if I were a BU alum is whether BU’s strategy for selecting students is still relevant. What’s the benefit of accepting a ton of students using BU as a safety school while bypassing kids that really want to be there?</p>
<p>Interesting. Admit rates and yield rates are affected by some pretty random factors like special interests, publics, religious, marketplace niche, and so on. They always produce some weird results. But interesting.</p>
<p>It is important to note that some schools have unique differentiators that could cause a yield preference unrelated to the quality of the University instruction itself: Geography/weather (Stanford has a unique position West of the Rockies, whereas most other Top ten are within 5 hours drive of each other), religion (BYU, ND), military (USAFA, USNA, USMA), Big Time Sports (Stanford, Northwestern, Duke, ND).</p>
<p>Stanford enjoys an advantage among those looking for:
World Class University + Warm Weather
World Class University + Big Time Sports
World Class University + West Coast</p>
<p>These advantages also apply to faculty recruitment, except in the case of faculty, Berkeley/Stanford stand together in prestige.</p>