<p>Early</a> Word on 2012 College Admission Yields and Wait-List Offers - NYTimes.com</p>
<p>According to the site, Dartmouth reported a 49.5 percent yield in 2012 of the 2,180 who were offered admission to the Class of 2016, meaning 1,080 have accepted their acceptance. Does that mean that the remaining 1100 spots are open to the waitlisted applicants? If not, how do they fill up the remaining 50.5% of the class? I'm a little confused about this.</p>
<p>Dartmouth (like all colleges) accepts far more applicants than it expects to come. The class of 2016 ended up with 1,098 students, so there were only about 18 spots open to the wait list – not 1100. Yield data for the class of 2017 is not yet out there, but I doubt it would be substantially different.</p>
<p>I can personally assure that Dartmouth will take nowhere near 1100 kids off its waitlist.</p>
<p>Although it really is up in the air about the accuracy of last year’s waitlist data - it honestly could easily be significantly higher or lower this year (in the waitlist game, this means about a dozen or so waitlist admits or more). Generally speaking, I would say there are two main ‘push’ and ‘pull’ forces that are at play with regards to Dartmouth’s yield and thus use of the waitlist this year:</p>
<p>1) It’s been another competitive year at all colleges. With this said, Dartmouth admits may not have very many options (given how competitive it is to get in anywhere) to consider in lieu of Dartmouth. All else equal, an applicant is more likely to choose Dartmouth if presented with fewer or no other equivalent options. Additionally, a more competitive year means that less enrolled Dartmouth admits get off other schools’ waitlists and attend those schools instead of Dartmouth - so even fewer potential open spots for you waitlistees to take up. Of course, it’s hard to tell just how bad/good it’s been for Dartmouth’s class of 2017 admits in particular.
2) Dartmouth’s been at the crux of a lot of bad publicity. I’m a '17, and I think I speak for all of my fellow Dartmouth students (past, current, and future) when I say that almost all of the allegations Dartmouth faces are somewhat/incredibly unrepresentative of the truth. Regardless, such publicity - like the protests in the middle of Dimensions or the infamous RS article - may deter this year’s admits from attending Dartmouth in favor of their other schools. No one knows for sure how serious of a thing this will end up becoming, but the worse it is, the more potential empty slots.</p>
<p>To sum up: we don’t really know for sure; we’re looking at major push-pull factors that are both difficult to predict accurately at this point in time. While the former factor may have <em>some</em> predictability, the latter factor is rather unprecedented and thus significantly harder to predict. Given that we haven’t THAT big of a drop in acceptance rates all around, and given that Dartmouth’s [unrepresentative] negative publicity has gained some pretty decent traction (some stories hitting the national spotlight), I would bet that you’ll have a few more waitlist acceptances this year than last year.</p>
<p>I could be mistaken in my analysis or statistics, in which case I encourage anyone else to chime in!</p>
<p>^^your analysis is mostly supposition.</p>
<p>I can assure you that Dartmouth admits have plenty of other choices, many of which offer full tuition discounts, and/or state honors colleges.</p>
<p>While bad publicity is never good, Dartmouth still has that Ivy label. Many/most won’t pay much attention to the bad pub.</p>
<p>OP: you dont’ understand the math. If Dartmouth desires a class of 1100 and knows, based on historical averages, that it has a 50% yield, Admissions will make offers to 2200 students. If exactly half accept, voila, the class is full (at 1100), and no one taken off of the WL. </p>
<p>Of course, the 50% yield goes up and down each year, depending on a whole host of factors, including bad publicity. </p>
<p>Schools like Dartmouth also lose a few over the summer each year, in what is called ‘summer melt.’ Primarily, summer melt results from someone who has committed to Dartmouth, but gets off of a WL at HYSPM. They accept the new offer, opening a spot at D. Other reasons for summer melt might be a committed students wants to defer for a year, and join D’s class the following year. Or, a student’s family incurs a major issue, and the student has to stay home and attend the state college instead. All kinds of reasons for a few spots to open over the summer.</p>
<p>Hello - what do you base this statement on? </p>
<p>"I think I speak for all of my fellow Dartmouth students (past, current, and future) when I say that almost all of the allegations Dartmouth faces are somewhat/incredibly unrepresentative of the truth. "</p>
<p>Honorlions states that he’s a 17. He would therefore has little or no personal knowledge, but obviously a great deal of buy-in. Let it go, MonkeyPlaya555. There are other threads discussing the allegations of conditions at the college.</p>