<p>Hi, I was wondering if anyone knew how colleges figure out how to gauge the number of freshman coming in? I realize some dip heavily into the waitlist, others not, but sometimes it's not an exact science. On our tours and visits, we would occasionally hear complaints about how they had "too many freshman" accept and someone got "screwed on housing" because of it. At others, they would say that forced tripling is common, but because of transfers,etc. that lessens up somewhat later in the year. One junior told me that the past year, her college got many more acceptance letters than the year before when they had room. I just wondered how at most colleges, they figure it out.</p>
<p>Well, the big thing is predicting yield. If you can predict what percentage of students will say "yes," you know how many to admit.</p>
<p>Predicting yield is not necesarily easy, however. Creating yield models is a big part of my job some years.</p>
<p>One thing we do is figure that yield will be different for different groups. Residents will have higher yield than non-residents. Star students will have a lower yield than those who fit the average academic profile. And so on. Generally, we look at what has happened with students in previous years, and try to make allowances for the things that change from year to year and other trends that seem to be in the wind. I don't know if all schools do it that way, but that's our general approach.</p>
<p>The most precise way to get a class would be to predict yield and then deliberately undershoot. For example, say you predict 50% yield and want a class of 1000. The math says you should admit 2000 students. But yield could go up or down--so the safest thing is to admit, say 1800 students. If yield goes up a 5% over prediction, you're still fine. If yield is exactly as predicted (50%) you'll have 900 students enrolled as of May 1 and you can top off using 100 people from the waitlist (and the waitlist is usually more predictable, because those students are on the waitlist because they want to come). If yield is lower than the 50%, you go even deeper on the waitlist.</p>
<p>However, despite how easy it is to nail the numbers exactly using the waitlist, most colleges would rather not have to use to waitlist too much--they do "lose" desirable students they'd otherwise get (some students might have accepted an outright admit, but refuse the waitlist because they feel slighted, or pessimistic about their chances). Plus it's hard on students to have things hanging like that, and they'll lose their deposits at other places, etc. So colleges really can't and don't rely on the waitlist to perfect the numbers.</p>
<p>They try to come close, and if yield is above predictions.... yikes, the class is bigger than planned on.</p>