<p>lots of info here:</p>
<p>45 first generation..........that is a new trend I guess. Nice post. The dirt is coming to the surface.</p>
<p>WOAH 27%?! sounds like a lot...although looks that it is pretty consistent with previous years.</p>
<p>So you are saying the incoming class will be 1200 students???</p>
<p>no cause for excitement, really:</p>
<p>"The 27 percent acceptance rate is down from last year's 29 percent, reflecting a rise in applicant numbers."</p>
<p>"The 599 students admitted in this round make up 49 percent of the projected class, a similar proportion as in recent years."</p>
<p>"As part the Princeton's plan to gradually increase class size in anticipation of Whitman College's opening in 2007, the total size of the Class of 2010 is projected to be 1,220, the same size as the Class of 2009 but an increase from 1,175 students two years ago."</p>
<p>Those are nice numbers really......Whitman's big bux will change some things huh? I am glad you posted this....it may help some of the down trodden who are feeling very kicked in the ego.</p>
<p>(1) 58% of the ED admits are male - a much higher fraction than the class is expected to be;</p>
<p>(2) 24% minorities - a much lower fraction than the class is expected to be; and</p>
<p>(3) 18% legacies - a higher fraction than the class is expected to be.</p>
<p>(4) Nearly 3/4 of ED applicants used the unique Princeton app vs the common app, whereas (based on last year's experience) 3/4 of the RD applicants will use the common app.</p>
<p>(5) Only 50% of the ED admits were from public schools, whereas 65% or so of last year's RD admits were public school grads.</p>
<p>Since, one assumes, there were at least SOME efforts to seek diversity in making ED selections, this seems to indicate that the ED applicant pool is highly unrepresentative - and substantively different from the RD pool.</p>
<p>I hope they keep on bringing in those first generation kids...gives me some hope.</p>
<p>Is there any comparative data on that stat? Last couple of years, perhaps?</p>
<p>i noted the same unrepresentativeness myself, byerly. for a school apparently committed to increasing diversity, the continued insistence on taking half the class from this unrepresentative pool is especially puzzling.</p>
<p>the official press release:</p>
<p>I noticed it as well. However, the final ED statistics may turn out looking different. Many of the minority students even on this board were deferred, and given the high yield of ED-deferred students, I think we'll turn out fine in the end -- especially when they see their financial aid papers.</p>
<p>Speaking of financial aid -- it could be one of the reasons for the underrepresentation of the group. Princeton may have admitted the more of the students who looked like they didn't need aid, so that funds could be splurged on the RD admits.</p>
<p>The ED pool was just too small and unrepresentative to get you off to a good start on what I call the "Noah's Ark" approach to class-building.</p>
<p>The benefit in a higher yield rate wasn't worth it when they found themselves forced to make too many compromises in taking admits from the RD pool.</p>
<p>I agree with you that Princeton will probably have to make the switch to either SCEA or open EA eventually. You wonder what their consulting firm is telling them on this point.</p>
<p>I guess its a calculation about how to move further beyond the "Princeton type" without a unacceptable hit to the yield rate. One obvious alternative is massive recruiting, and they are starting to ramp up there. But so is the "competition."</p>
<p>now that u.s. news has dropped yield as a factor in its rankings - reducing its role to a mere bragging point in press releases - i can't understand the continued concern over it, as manifest in princeton's continued use of ED, and its continued reservation of 49% of the class for the ED group. i understand, of course, that ED helps the school manage enrollment and class composition, and that it helps those fortunate to be accepted early - who benefit from the substantially increased odds (at their RD counterparts' expense) and are spared the toils of filling out RD applications. still, the school could manage enrollment and composition nearly as well with SCEA, where admits have proven to enroll at an 88-90% clip. i'd expect princeton's SCEA admits would enroll at not much lower a rate, if any. and under SCEA, early applicants would still benefit from increased odds. the huge additional benefit of SCEA, however, would be about a thousand or two more early applicants to choose from. because of the non-binding nature of SCEA, it's reasonable to assume that many of these additional applicants would represent desirable demographics - women, minorities (i sense that the ridiculous "applicants of color" is finally dying), and low-income and first-generation applicants. many of them would also, of course, offer credentials worthy of admission. the result would be a stronger, more diverse class, only at the expense of overall yield - whose role, as i have said before, has been reduced to a bragging point. just pull the trigger, janet.</p>
<p>expanding a bit, because i'm not completely happy with my previous post: </p>
<p>so long as u.s. news used yield as a factor in its all-important rankings, it was at least rational (from a competitive standpoint) for schools to make tradeoffs between student quality and yield. they could, and did, do so, by the increased use of early admissions and strategic admissions, whereby they accepted students of lesser credentials who were formally bound to enroll (ED) or more likely to do so (SA). (granted, however, this may not have seemed <em>rational</em> to the faculty and others who regarded student quality as paramount.)</p>
<p>now, however, in what one might call the post-yield era, it's no longer rational for schools like princeton to make the above tradeoff. student quality has regained its rightly paramount place. as such, princeton should be doing whatever it can to increase its student quality. this has two dimensions: 1) increasing the number, diversity, and strength of applicants; and 2) after admitting them, increasing the number who enroll. it appears to be doing the first already, however belatedly; but the continued reliance on ED acts as a hindrance. hundreds, if not thousands, of potential applicants currently bypass P for H, Y, or S, where they would not be bound to enroll if admitted. sure, those admitted could still apply RD to princeton, but history shows that they do so in small numbers, face stiff odds of admission there (thanks to the disproportionate reliance on ED), and enroll in small numbers (having had several months to fall in love with and imagine themselves at their SCEA school).</p>
<p>it would be more rational to, as a first step, switch to SCEA. this would increase the number, range, and strength of early applicants and thus admits. after this initial step, princeton should - fighting its inclinations here - gradually cut back on the number of early admits (even under SCEA, the RD pool will still be many times larger, as well as more diverse and stronger). viewing the SCEA and RD pools together as a single applicant pool (while <em>practically</em> impossible) would surely lead adcoms to fill a much smaller percentage of the class from the SCEA pool, which, while larger, more diverse, and stronger than ED pools, would still be smaller, less diverse, and weaker than RD pools (see: avery et al, the early admissions game). in addition to producing the strongest possible class, such a system would finally be fair to both early applicants (who can compare financial aid packages) and regular applicants (who are no longer disadvantaged by artificially depressed admit rates).</p>
<p>... except for noting that yield rate and admit rate are inextricably tied together - ie, the higher the yield, the fewer it is necessary to admit in order to fill the class. </p>
<p>Admit rate is still a "selectivity" marker used by USNews, and it is also true that a class may be assembled with more precision (Noah's Ark-wise) if the number of "admits per seat" is closer to 1:1.</p>
<p>Its the season of miracles. Byerly and F. Scottie agree! For those who are curious, according to the Princeton Website the ED rate for the class of 2009 was 29% (593 of 599) compared to this years 27% (599 out of 2236). One suspects that whether the applicant pool had declined to 2,000 or increased to 3,000 Princeton still would have selected around 600 students ED. Clearly, despite statements by the university to the contrary, the ED applicants are competing against other ED applicants, not against an absolute standard applied to all applications regardless of whether they are submitted ED or RD. As for SCEA, let Princeton go head to head with HYS. Im sure Princeton will do just fine under SCEA, getting the mix of students it wants overall, even if it loses some individual students to its rivals in the process.</p>
<p>... its a unanimous vote.</p>
<p>(while somewhere Freddie Hargadon is shuddering in disbelief)</p>
<p>I disagree I think ED is worthwhile and dont ever underestimate Hargadon.</p>
<p>I favor ED. Early Action allows the top performing seniors to essentially collect letters from the top schools, even after they have heard from their top choice. ED allows the kids who passionately want to go to a specific school to have a better shot at getting in. EA kids take spots from RD applicants, even though they have already gotten into their first choice school.</p>