<p>Here is Princetons official announcement. The acceptance rate was 9.25% (1,976 offers) with 1,526 on the wait list. Women and men were accepted in equal numbers (50% each) and about 45% of the admitted are students of color. International students make up 10.2% of the admitted and represent 61 countries.</p>
<p>Wait...
"Princeton University has offered admission to 1,976 students..." but "the University expects 1,240 students to enroll in the class of 2012."</p>
<p>So, they expect a yield of 62.7%? And this assumes they don't use waitlist at all... that yield seems mighty low.</p>
<p>I agree. With those numbers I cannot see them using the waitlist at all.
And, I cannot believe that they put so many on the waitlist.</p>
<p>That made more sense compared with yesterday's admission stats.
I was estimating 8.5% range, I hope they got their estimate right, especially considering that Harvard increased its yield estimate by giving out some 110 less spots. Don't want to see an overcrowded class, since my kid most likely will be in it.</p>
<p>Nassau Hall has repeatedly emphasized that housing next year will be very tight, given that the new Butler College will not be completed until fall of 2009. Thus it is surprising that they admitted so many students in the regular round, since even a small upward variation in yield could lead to a serious housing crunch. For whatever reason, it seems they are certain that yield will be relatively low; and while at this point I hope they are correct, such a significantly reduced yield would be an unfortunate backslide from Princeton's recently increased success in attracting superstar students.</p>
<p>They do have another lever for control: don't budge on finaid. Saw some kids earlier complained on this board about how little they got, wonder whether it's part of the tactics in "crowd controlling".
Regardless, this year's yield rate won't be pretty, compared with Harvard (who may be aggressive in finaid to lock in students) and Yale.</p>
<p>they are expecting a "lower" yield than usual because usually the ED kids are taken into account, and they have to attend. The 60 something percent yield that they are calculating this year is in line with the recent sets of years. They also don't seem to be expecting too much of a housing crunch, as many of the upperclass rooms that switch between triples and quads depending on years are triples this year.</p>
<p>For comparison here is last year (2007) news item:
Princeton</a> University - Princeton offers admission to 9.5 percent of applicants</p>
<p>so does anyone have any estimates of how many they'll be taking off of the waitlist? right now, to me, it seems like it'll be very few... :(</p>
<p>bostonc you may be right. Top student from our school (URM also accepted at HYS and MIT) was offered 0 aid and as far as I know Princeton has no Merit aid.</p>
<p>If we extrapolate based on last year:
In 2007 RD round 648 (1245-597ED) accepted, giving a 54% yield (648/1194%) in RD round.</p>
<p>With no ED, assuming 60% accept, that would mean 1186 accept. So it may work out to 54 being pulled from waiting list to make the 1240 number. But then again, that would result in a 62% yeild, way too low for Princeton to boast about. So it may mean they pull more from waiting list to keep yield at 70%, maybe around 100.</p>
<p>Ya, lots of assumptions here, but nice to keep hopes up for waiterlisters!</p>
<p>P.S. I think because of the termination of ED, they are playing around with numbers. So to keep yield high, they are moving the ball to the wait listers court, and that won't count when stats driven studies will use the 1976 offers to calculate the yield after final admits. Any thoughts on this?</p>
<p>another question: does any one know about how many people accept their spot on the waitlist?</p>
<p>Jadoube (chess player?), I think there may be something amiss with your friends story. The aid packages at all of these schools are now roughly comparable. Up until this year, Princetons was widely recognized as the most generous but I would say thats no longer true. When Harvard improved its financial aid in December and other schools followed, they caught up with the changes Princeton had made a number of years ago. Harvards, in fact, is probably slightly more generous and all the others are about equal to Princeton. Since each school is using slightly different methods of calculating aid there will certainly be differences but it seems unlikely that Princeton would have given your friend no aid at all if the other schools gave significant sums. I assume that is what you are suggesting and if that has happened then I would strongly urge the student to contact Princeton and let them know about the differences. There may have been a mistake.</p>
<p>As for yield, it will be interesting to watch. Princeton was conservative and guessed that its yield would drop with the end of early decision. The tradeoff was a larger and more diverse applicant pool which can be seen in this years group. Yale, held onto its early action program and, guessing that its yield wont drop, admitted a smaller percentage of applicants than it otherwise would have. Harvard actually guessed that its yield will increase (primarily due to the improved financial aid) and accepted even a lower percentage than it otherwise would have. </p>
<p>Im going to bet that Princeton estimated its yield fairly accurately and that there wont be nearly as many taken off the wait list as many might have thought. Ill also bet that Yale has overestimated its yield and will take many more from the wait list this year than last year, when they took a little over 50. Yales early action pool included a significant number of students whose first choice was actually Princeton or Harvard but who could not apply early there. If these students were accepted in the regular decision round at either of those two schools they are much more likely to turn down Yale. As for Harvard, who knows? Harvard has long had the highest matriculation rate of these three and with the improved financial aid it may increase. Something tells me, however, that they may have guessed high and that they will also use the waiting list a little more than they had expected. Of the approximately 20% of their admitted students who turn them down (I was one of them) Ill bet that most arent doing so for financial reasons and that their yield will not increase to 85% as they are betting. None of this will really be sorted out until mid summer after offers to students on the wait lists of some schools cause other schools to have to go to theirs to replace lost matriculants. There will be a cascading effect across many colleges.</p>
<p>Rr43, I dont think Princeton will admit any more students than necessary to reach the class size of 1,240. There simply wont be enough bed space if they do. Also, yield isnt a number that the best known college ranking system (i.e. U.S. News) even includes in its calculations. They dropped that a couple of years ago. The greater risk for Princeton is that too many students accept the offer of admission and there isnt enough space for them. This was a problem for Harvard last year and it leads to unhappiness on the part of the students and ultimately doesnt reflect well on the school.</p>
<p>thank you for your informative post - it's hard to be on the waitlist in such a year, especially with all this talk of "hundreds" being taken off. I guess there's not much to do except to submit my SIR to a different school while hoping for the best and expecting the worst. :|</p>
<p>
[quote]
They do have another lever for control: don't budge on finaid. Saw some kids earlier complained on this board about how little they got, wonder whether it's part of the tactics in "crowd controlling".
Regardless, this year's yield rate won't be pretty, compared with Harvard (who may be aggressive in finaid to lock in students) and Yale.
[/quote]
bostonc, i think you have a very good point. compared to other colleges (including Harvard), Princeton gave me much lower fin aid...i saw on another thread here that even ppl w/ higher incomes than me got better aid.</p>
<p>I'm sure there is room for negotiation. The fact that you pick the phone calling them up is a sign to the admission office that you're interested in going there and by engaging you in the phone conversation, they'll figure out how serious you're and what it takes for you to commit.
What I'm not sure is that they have a good grip on the yield rate from this round. If the yield rate is low, it'll be good for those who shop around.</p>