So, to the folks asking “what’s wrong with yield protection?” - my main beef with it is the uncertainty it causes applicants. It makes it much harder for an applicant to come up with a balanced list of safeties and targets/matches.
I hope you’ll agree that it’s reasonable to judge ones chances of getting in to a particular school based on their profile and past data (available through Naviance / published data / GC info / etc). Now I’ve heard some people say “you shouldn’t take acceptance to any school as a given” - but if you don’t agree with this basic premise behind shortlisting colleges then the whole concept of safeties, matches and reaches goes out the window.
Now, if an applicant can no longer expect with a reasonably high probability that they’ll get into a “match” school because some computer algorithm or the “data guru” they’ve hired is going to flag them as unlikely to enroll then the applicant is going to send out a lot more applications to increase the likelihood they’ll be accepted somewhere that’s still a good fit for them. We’re already seeing this happen. A huge rise in applications, which has a domino effect on the whole process - lower acceptance rates, longer decision times, more stressed-out kids, more uncertain enrollment prediction for the school, etc. isn’t a good thing.
So that in my opinion is at least one major problem with yield protection practices.
I agree. My S wanted Tulane, and even a few years ago, it was clear he needed to apply ED if he was to have much of a chance. Why do higher stats kids think schools like Tulane owe them something? The school does a pretty good job of enrolling students who really like it. It is unfortunate that you can’t compare financial aid offers etc., but there are so many other schools you can apply to if you don’t like the way they do it. Of course it’s helpful to be AWARE of how they do it but I think it’s a little annoying all the kids dissing a school that wasn’t their first choice anyway.
Of course, an overyield of the top end of the admissions class means that the college has successfully increased its attractiveness to top-end applicants / admits. This is generally a good thing in the view of most colleges.
Instead of waitlisting / rejecting applicants from the top end of the applicant pool, an alternative method to manage the risk of overyield is to use the waitlist more at margin of admission. That way, if the top end of the admit pool overyields, the college will have gained more top end matriculants, while not using the waitlist to admit more at the margin.
It’s just not that difficult to create a balanced list.
Quite a number of schools have been mentioned on this thread as yield protectors. ALL of the schools with under 20% acceptance rates (for example, NEU, Tulane, UChicago) are reaches for ALL unhooked applicants. Some get caught up in thinking that’s not true if the student’s stats are above the 75%ile, and that incorrect assumption can lead some students and even GCs astray. With that said, the HS’s history is very important when categorizing schools.
That leaves some schools with higher than 20% acceptance rates and say lower than 50%, like CWRU just to stick with a school mentioned a bazillion times here, that are match/targets for relatively high stats students. And no one should ever think it’s odd/wrong/unfair that any student is deferred and/or denied at a match/target school…that’s the definition of that category…you win some, you lose some.
There aren’t that many unhooked high stat students where CWRU could be considered a safety…I leave room that there may be some HSs where this would be true.
I see AU as similar to CWRU across many practices…high proportion class admitted ED, demonstrated interest critical, acceptance rate between 20% and 50%, a match/target for unhooked high stats students, a safety for relatively few. Big difference is AU doesn’t offer EA nor meet full need, so if it’s not a student’s first choice or they need to merit hunt, they are forced to run the RD gauntlet.
If a “top” applicant is WL, they can ask to stay on the WL and presumably be one of the first admitted if there are spots they fill. Not sure that the schools miss out on them so long as they aren’t flatly denied.
Kids turn down WL spots when they have preferable options. I guess I don’t see how the school loses when the option is to admit them EA and wait until May 1 to hear if they are coming vs put them on WL and let them say they are interested in being admitted.
For schools where high stats kids get merit, the amount of that is limited. So to the extent that you are right and the schools is “missing out”, perhaps they can only afford to “buy” so many top students.
Either way, the school is working within its own limits.
I’ll go a step further that the schools with under 50% acceptance rates are not safeties for anyone. Match/likely/target, yes. Safeties are a sure bet admission in my book.
Counterexample: University of Texas at Austin has a 32% admission rate. However, it is a safety for Texas high school students with the required high school course work and top 6% class rank, and not aiming for a competitive major.
It depends. If you attended the gov school for science (the one for engg doesn’t place as well) in NJ the junior summer for just 3 weeks, the odds of a HYPSM placement are 50%. I am guessing the odds of a NEU placement are <10%. The odds of a T20 placement are 90%. At that point those are safeties.
My son was joking that the one cohort that has a better placement record than the gov school is kids with an IMO Gold. At that point the odds of their placement into T5 are > 95%. People remember some kid that was turned down 10 years ago, because he had very bad English or something.
But here’s the problem with your logic- virtually ever single kid who gets rejected (half of the pool you are describing) are absolutely qualified based on the metrics.
So most folks would argue- if it were THEIR kid in the reject pile- that something nefarious was going on. Right?
I don’t know. Anything is possible. You are right. I am not trying to be argumentative. I also have theories on why some of those kids may not get in. I won’t get into it here – some of the theories won’t be well received here. If you are in that cohort, and care because it matters to you, I can explain this in greater detail over a PM as to which of the 50% you may fall into.
Incidentally there is value in the numbers I gave you :-). Rather than trying to argue with me for the sake of arguing :-), you should try strenuously to get into gov school if your state offers it. The positive effect may vary of course based on how selective that particular gov school is perceived to be. Similar effects have been observed for some of the more nationally reputed summer camps that cost only a minimal amount or are free. College admissions are less of a lottery at that point.
My state does not offer such programs. And I won’t get into the decisions that went into de-emphasizing gifted education at all levels…
I’m not arguing with you. I’m trying to point out that for every family’s experience, which they believe to represent “truth”, there is another family with a completely different perspective. And it’s worth considering that what any of us believe to be objective truth is in fact, quite subjective.
As I’ve pointed out- I was “that kid” who didn’t “deserve” my admission to the U I attended because so many “better” students got rejected. So I come at this with a different lens. I wasn’t a legacy, an athlete, don’t come from money, had no unusual musical talent… and even my GC figured it was a mistake because “more qualified” kids were rejected.
What does “more qualified” mean anyway? I graduated with honors, was a leader in various campus activities, and have tried to give back during the last few decades. So it doesn’t seem to me like it was a “wasted” seat (as many people feel when a “lesser” student gets in and a “stronger” student does not.)
This doesn’t mean at all that the other kids weren’t more qualified. You agree to that right? We don’t know the counter factual. It is just a question of fairness. I am not trying to be hard. I am just trying to clarify where there is a flaw in the argument.
Indeed. It is OK for and from the perspective of the colleges, perhaps but not for the applicants, for sure! It is a crazy race to nowhere that only leads to students applying to an unfathomably high number of colleges. I do think the colleges playing the yield protection game are in fact being shortsighted thinking that everyone will be OK to go along with this game and the ill-will they create will not catch up with them at some point. I also think that it leads to a situation where many students are ending up at colleges that are not necessarily the best fits or colleges not always getting some of the students they would have loved to have. Having said that, the current COVID-driven environment and other considerations make the recent admission cycles some of the worst experiences for students and tough-to-manage processes for colleges. Outcomes were always somewhat unknowable and unpredictable but not nearly at these levels. It is a broken system.
I’d agree that schools with low acceptance rates shouldn’t be considered “safeties”. However, for some students, these schools that practice yield “protection” can’t even be considered “matches” or “targets”, because of their perceived “overqualification”. Their only “safety” is probably their in-state flagship. The rest are all “reaches”.
Universities can basically choose to accept any applicant they want, and it doesn’t have to be “fair.”
They are manipulating yields to benefit themselves.
Similarly, applicants apply to schools only in their own self-interest.
If applicants don’t like the school because it engages in unfair practices, don’t apply.
If fairness is the main issue, one can easily make the argument that preferential treatment for special populations is a much bigger problem. In some schools, they may comprise up to 50% of the student body- depending on the definition of special population.
But that’s an issue for a different thread.
How does one define the limits of what is fair or not?