Princeton's yield tumbles 3 points this year

Colleges & Universities A-Z Princeton University
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<p>Based on my son’s feelings about Preview Weekend and Princeton efforts to woo accepted students, I must say I agree with the above post.</p>

<p>My son enrolled at Princeton in spite of the preview weekend. He did sit in on one class, which he loved, but overall the weekend just was not that much fun. Informative, yes. Fun, no. MIT’s preview on the other hand was “amazing”. He felt really wanted at MIT; not so at Princeton. I think a bit more effort by the admissions team could go a long way toward increasing their yield.</p>

<p>I think the academic departments did a great job of convincing him about the amazing academic experience he would have, but the rest of it was…ho hum.</p>

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<p>Interesting. My daughter’s year, she loved the Princeton Admit Weekend. My son didn’t go - he was traveling. I wonder if the weekend has changed now that they have two dates?</p>

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<p>I think MSauce might have a good suggestion as an area to consider improvement. There is always room for improving in everything. I don’t know much about Princeton’s current Admit Weekend. I do know the parents of some Stanford students. They went to Stanford’s Admit weekend totally undecided and with outstanding options. They came home talking about how great Stanford is and they completely had their mind made up that is where they wanted to go.</p>

<p>Maybe Princeton does as good a job as others in their admit weekend, maybe not. The fact is the yield went down and there must be reasons for that. </p>

<p>JohnAdams, I think at times you are too defensive about Princeton. It seems if anybody posts something other than Princeton is perfect you respond with sarcasm or ridicule. I am just as big a supporter of Princeton as you are and I can appreciate thoughtful suggestions about the school such as I believe was given by MSauce.</p>

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<p>I also think the immature and often annoying posters on this forum that believe they are advancing the cause of Princeton are doing a disservice to the University. These posters only reinforce the stereotype of Princeton grads as being arrogant and pretentious.</p>

<p>This stereotype cannot be further from the truth. I just returned from reunions. Every time I go back I am reminded of how amazing of a place Princeton is and how wonderful its alums are. These alums are mostly normal, down to earth and incredibly talented people who are extremely grateful for the opportunity to spend four years at Princeton. Even the Ivy Alumni! :)</p>

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<p>Yeah, as an occasional target of the Princeton Taliban on CC, I have to say that in real life I have never met a Princeton alumnus who feels insecure or defensive about Princeton at all. They are perfectly willing to take minor criticisms of Princeton in stride because each and every one of them believes in his or her soul that Princeton is so superior to every other college that the little stuff hardly matters, and it doesn’t need defending or advertising. Or at least the ones I’ve met. They’re like, “Sure, eating clubs can be exclusionary, and getting hosed sucks. I loved my club! Great people! We had great parties! So did everyone else!”</p>

<p>(As a minor criticism, this can sometimes come off as “smug”, but never, ever as defensive.)</p>

<p>Princeton has THE most enthusiastic and involved alumni of any college, anywhere.</p>

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<p>I’d have to say that it was the local Princeton alums that sold my son on Princeton. He got several phone calls about it, but none from other prestigious schools. My overall impression is that Princton is not a particularly welcoming place. Too many east coast prep school kids with their own cliques. By the end of the second semester, he was settled in.</p>

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<p>Higgins,</p>

<p>I am sorry your son took so long to feel comfortable at Princeton. My son will be starting in the fall and knowing his personality, he too will probably take a while to “get settled” as you put it. </p>

<p>Not to sound overly defensive about Princeton here, but I do think that the prevalence of lots of East Coast prep kids at Princeton in not unique to Princeton. I think you will find these kids in large numbers at all the top schools. They naturally gravitate in the early months to those they know already, but over time I think they broaden their social network.</p>

<p>Maybe things have changed, but when I was there no one really talked much about which high school they went to. There didn’t seem to be a great divide between private and public school kids. I had friends from both.</p>

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<p>I think that Princeton seriously needs to reconsider its grade deflation policy if it ever hopes to improve yield; it seems to be doing way more harm than good. My concerns wouldn’t even be primarily grad/professional school-related-- who wants to spend four years competing with classmates over a B+ instead of getting to know them?</p>

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<p>Grade deflation really isn’t that bad. At least in honors math and physics classes, the average is a B+. And honestly, I would prefer to be around people who are interested in learning rather than getting the highest grades possible. The atmosphere, at least in these higher level classes (I don’t know about elementary ones) is the farthest thing from competitive (and I do have experience).</p>

<p>About preview, I totally agree that it was not the best way to promote Princeton… I actually had a lot more fun at the Harvard preview. It was still clear to me that Princeton was the better choice, but the Harvard preview genuinely made me feel bad that I couldn’t somehow go there too.</p>

<p>I think another factor is prestige… somehow Princeton doesn’t have quite the cache of Harvard or Yale to most people. At the Harvard prefrosh, my parents overheard a conversation between two parents of admitted students. One said her daughter was deciding between Harvard and Princeton, and the other replied, “Well, Princeton is on a lower tier…” Recently, the mother of a high school age student who had heard that I had been accepted to Harvard and Princeton stopped me as I was walking to school. She wanted to ask me questions about my activities, standardized tests, etc. (which was strange enough since I had never spoken to her or her daughter) and she opened the conversation with, “So I heard you’re going to Harvard…” I replied, “Actually, I decided on Princeton.” Her response was, “Why???” I think this attitude partially explains the yield phenomenon. But frankly, I don’t see why yield matters. The fact that more of my fellow students chose Harvard doesn’t make it the right choice for me. In fact, I like being the nonconformist =)</p>

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<p>I just meant that grade deflation would appear to pit students against each other. If you knew that it was possible for everyone in a class to earn an A (provided they all presented A-worthy work and nothing less), then this would surely cultivate a far more friendly atmosphere than if everyone was working for one of three or four A’s. I know I would be more willing to work with people (thus getting to know them) if I knew that they weren’t the competition. Everyone is concerned with his or her grades, to some extent, because what’s the point of going to college if you don’t want to succeed there?</p>

<p>Ultimately, my position is that college should be about more than what goes on inside the classroom; encouraging needless competition among students prevents them from forging the lasting relationships that I at least hope to take with me when I graduate.</p>

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<p>I have never heard a single report of any kind of competition due to grade deflation. Caveat - my kids weren’t pre-med. But still, Princeton is very low on the cut-throat academic environment scale, among the top tier schools.</p>

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<p>But my point is that it DOESN’T create an unfriendly atmosphere. I can see why you may expect that it would, but I’ve been there and that isn’t the case. Even in a very small class (<15 people) the atmosphere was very collaborative, despite the fact only a few people earned A’s.</p>

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<p>I agree. When I visited, people were still willing to work with each other and everyone understood that they needed help, and to get help, they needed to give it, too. Overall, I felt like people were willing to help each other. Grade deflation only matters to grade grubbers who don’t care about the actual learning, and from what I saw of Princeton, the people there care more about the learning than the grade. In addition, Princeton sends a letter to grad schools explaining grade deflation and the effect it had on the student’s GPA so it’s nothing to worry about.</p>

<p>Again, like I’ve said, why does yield matter to people? Why should a collection of others opinions about Princeton matter to people? What matters is how you feel about an institution, not what a bunch of mostly uninformed other people think about a school. If 0% of people chose to go to Princeton, then maybe it’d be an issue. But a lot of people are choosing between HYPSM, and so what if Princeton has a lower yield than last year? Does that make it a “bad” college? I mean, it’s Princeton.</p>

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<p>So much angst and so many snide comments, especially from our “new member” (and including a few from those with Princeton connections who should know better).</p>

<p>I will bet that the final entering class next September will number about 1,320 students (just like last year) and Princeton’s yield will end up about 2% lower than it was last year. I had previously guessed a 1% drop in yield before seeing the waitlist numbers.</p>

<p>Within the Ivy League, there is really no good benchmark against which to compare these changes. The only other Ivy that doesn’t have an early program is Harvard. All other schools use a binding early decision program (typically thought to result in about an 8% to 10% increase in overall matriculation rate) with the exception of Yale which uses a single choice early action program (typically thought to result in about a 4% to 6% increase in overall matriculation rate depending on how aggressively it’s used). </p>

<p>This year, Stanford saw a rise in its matriculation rate. Harvard’s will drop by a fraction. Princeton’s will drop about 2% and Yale’s looks as though it will drop about 1.5%. The first year that Harvard and Princeton dropped their early programs, the yield for each dropped. Harvard’s yield declined only about 2.5% after dropping its early action program. Princeton’s yield declined about 9% after dropping early decision. The second year after dropping their early programs both schools saw a slight rise in their yield rates. Three years later they’ve both declined again a bit. For now, there doesn’t appear to be any trend one way or the other. </p>

<p>Yale’s situation is a little different. Yale kept its single choice early action program when Harvard and Princeton dropped theirs. That first year it saw a surge in SCEA applicants as students had fewer options. The second year there was a modest rise in early applicants but this year there was a 5% drop and overall, a slight decline in the total number of applicants from the previous year. Yale’s yield has dropped between 1% and 1.5% each of the last five years. I think it’s too early to know if this is a trend. This year, a little over 60% of the members of the Class of 2014 will have come from the SCEA pool. This assumes that the SCEA deferred students were accepted at the same rate as the other members of the regular action pool. (Typically, they have been accepted at a higher rate. If that is true this year, then the percentage of the final class from the SCEA pool may be closer to two-thirds.)</p>

<p>Stanford’s situation is even more difficult to analyze. Similar to Yale, Stanford has a restrictive early action program though it doesn’t use its program as aggressively as does Yale. The other significant factor for Stanford is the existence of athletic scholarships. Upper middle class students who don’t qualify for aid at Harvard, Princeton or Yale can still get very generous scholarships from Stanford if they are among the athletically elite. About 300 of Stanford’s undergraduates receive athletic scholarships ( a little under 20% of each class). Many of these might qualify for aid at Stanford’s peers (based on need) but many would not. Stanford’s yield is up this year but over the past five years doesn’t appear to show a strong trend.</p>

<p>The following lists show the comparable yield numbers at each of these schools for the last five years. The only accurate comparison is to take the figures reported in the Common Data Set for each school. The CDS forms don’t appear until the early fall so the percentages for 2010 are calculated estimates.</p>

<p>Harvard</p>

<p>2006 79.2
2007 78.7
2008 76.2 - first non-EA year
2009 76.5
2010 76.3 (estimate)</p>

<p>Princeton</p>

<p>2005 68.1
2006 68.6
2007 67.7
2008 58.6 - first non-EA year
2009 59.8
2010 57.8 (estimate)</p>

<p>Yale</p>

<p>2005 70.3%
2006 70.0%
2007 69.1%
2008 67.6%
2009 66.8%
2010 65.4% (estimate)</p>

<p>Stanford</p>

<p>2005 67.4%
2006 69.9%
2007 69.9%
2008 71.0%
2009 69.8%
2010 72.5% (estimate)</p>

<p>Changes from year to year are always relatively small. Still, while the final analysis hasn’t been completed, it appears that the Class of 2014 may be the strongest academically and the most diverse that Princeton has ever had. Apparently, some of this information has already been given to members of the Princeton Schools Committee who interview applicants and who have shared it with me. By all standard measures, the incoming class is amazing. I doubt that the drop in yield is going to be of concern when the strength of the Class of 2014 has actually increased. </p>

<p>Interestingly, the students deciding not to matriculate in the last few years do not seem to have come overwhelmingly from the academically strongest group. If Princeton’s reputation for tougher grading than some of its peers is deterring some students from matriculating, it appears that the effect is greatest on those who were among the weaker academically. The result has actually been a skewing of entering classes toward the academcically stronger students. The Class of 2014 will also be more ethnically diverse than any previous Princeton class.</p>

<p>While I’ve not been able to learn anything yet about this year’s cross-admit statistics, I doubt they have changed much either. Princeton continues to lose to Harvard, splits evenly with Yale and has a very slight advantage over Stanford and MIT. I know from personal conversations with individuals in leadership positions at Princeton that this has been true for years though I don’t know anything specific about this year.</p>

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<p>Pton, as usual, an excellent presentation.</p>

<p>this is what I was emphasizing earlier, but only jokingly - thanks for verifying it:</p>

<p>

</p>

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<p>There was a question from Anonymous93 about why yield matters. I don’t think it does when you compare schools. Saying Yale or Stanford have higher yields than Princeton does little to compare the two.</p>

<p>What it does mean, however, is that Stanford is getting 72% of the students they deem to be their “top” applicants, and Princeton is only in the upper 50s. Again, that shouldn’t mean anything to prospective students, but it does mean quite a bit to current students and administration who are losing out on a little more than 40% of their top students.</p>

<p>In that sense, every school should be focused on improving their yield. There were some problems with ED for Princeton that I understand, but why wouldn’t schools use SCEA if it meant they could get more of their top students?</p>

<p>Obviously, all schools could vastly improve in that regard, and few schools will reach 100. But regardless of what you think of a school like, say, BYU, they’re getting the applicants that they want.</p>

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<p>There are many prefrosh here who visited one or two classes and think they know something about the atmosphere of the entire school. I don’t blame them, but please wait till you’ve come here before making up your mind. Sitting in for a class and not taking it for a grade gives you absolutely no idea of how grade deflation feels. Those of us who have been there know how it feels like and have heard of how it has affected friends and friends of friends. I can tell you that it’s not pretty.</p>

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<p>Schools might choose not to use SCEA because it advantages the advantaged. If a school’s goal is to enroll the most diverse class possible, do away with any form of early decision. Adopt rolling admissions if you want to spread out the workload.</p>

<p>Just to add to the comments on grade deflation as the parent of a '13 - no complaints from her. She felt all her grades, but one, were fair. She’s also reported cooperation and study groups in various classes. I can’t ‘link’ but if you look on Princeton’s website and read the blurb about this year’s valedictorian, he mentions cooperation between students. The website reports that 42% of graduating seniors received some level of honor, so it’s not a shutout. Even if As are scarce, there will still be a top X percent of the class and a bottom to the class. The more I read/think about grade deflation, the more it makes sense to me. The key is communicating it to grad schools and employers. </p>

<p>I’m sorry, screwitlah, that your experience has been different and you don’t sound very happy. Who knows, my D may turn against the system during her time there and I hear there is some grumbling/snickering about the freedom experienced by the kids over at Brown but I suspect there’s also some pride in feeling they’ve earned any high grades they get. I can’t imagine anyone choosing Princeton (with grade deflation and senior theses) because it’s easy.</p>

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<p>screwitlah - I don’t know whether you were referring partially to me in your comment, but I’ve taken 4 classes at Princeton, so I’m not judging the atmosphere based on sitting in a couple of classes, but on having completely gone through them. Every grade I have received has been fair, and I’ve never felt any sort of competition.</p>

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<p>screwitlah, didn’t you defer for a year?</p>