For a college where many of the parts of The Common Application are not used (e.g. recommendations), but which have other things outside of The Common Application that they require (e.g. specific-to-the-college essays, SRAR in college-specific format), the value of using it may be negative to that college.
LoRs do inject the quality of and access to recommenders into the student’s application, even though these aspects may be independent of the student’s abilities and achievements. I.e. if the teacher who is most impressed by the student is not a good LoR writer, or is overloaded and has rationed recommendations where the student is left out, the student loses out compared to others of similar ability and achievement who got excellent LoR writers. This may be another advantage of elite prep schools, where teachers probably have plenty of practice and training from the dedicated college counseling staff, and the latter probably help allocate students’ LoR requests to teachers to optimize LoRs for the students whole not overloading any teachers.
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These schools are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Offer an app with no fee? Pandering for apps. App with high fee? Should be more accessible to low SES applicants. Use the Common app? Contributing to the extremely competitive state of admissions by facilitating too many applications. Use your own app? Forcing an additional burden upon applicants.
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Do you not recognize the difference in resources required for managing an admissions organization, process and marketing for an institution with a 25% yield vs. a 75% yield?
Maximizing yield financially benefits every school at every rate of yield.
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In the end, these schools are businesses. If Georgetown didn’t get enough apps because of the extra work, they’d change. I get that.
It’s a consumer driven business like any other.
You might have access to the same educational opportunity at U of Nebraska that you do at Harvard - after all, in theory, History 101 is History 101.
The American Revolution facts don’t change. The textbooks are the same. Sure, one may (or may not be) more rigorous.
But Harvard has set itself up “perception” wise - and the public has agreed - that it is a step above.
Georgetown, UT Austin (not on common but the lesser used consortium, the UCs, Alabama), etc. have set themselves up on a different infrastructure and people still flock to them in droves - and so they have no reason (from their side) to change.
Of course, if everyone was on Common or if there was at least an LOR Common system, then people would cry about monopoly 
Not to derail this conversation, but not even in theory are the classes equivalent across different levels of colleges.
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History is probably a lot more variable across instructors and colleges than calculus. Given the volume of facts and interpretations, any given history course on a specific subject has to choose a subset of them. (And history instruction can get politicized because of that.)
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@ucbalumnus and @Eeyore123 I’m simply trying to say - one can get a similar education at most colleges. At publics, they created Honors. Can - if they pursue it. You have Harvard people that don’t get into med school and MS State that do.
I’m just saying - in a consumer world, businesses use power.
And by the fact that people would sell their souls - and in many cases have - to attend a certain institution where they can get a similar education elsewhere (and they can) - it’s a business using their clout.
No different than Luis Vuitton or Coach or whatever gets a prestige bump over a handbag from Target…they both carry the same amount of stuff. And no, not looking for handbag reviews
When I was in grad school, late 90s - had a friend do an MBA at Wharton. While I was in class at my MBA (#40 rank), he was looking for a job on day one. You know what he did barely any of - school work? He said the #1 class from day one - above content - was finding a job. Just having the Wharton stamp made him marketable - vs. having to learn, etc.
I got paid $3K to go to grad school. He paid a boat load…but what he paid for was prestige, not education…at least the way he spells it out.
And yes, it paid off for him.
I think your point i read that you’re trying to make is that future success is largely in the student’s hand and not simply conferred by the institution, and that experiences will have equivalencies, but not outright sameness. Broadly, I’d agree.
Unfortunately this seems to be a pattern at CWRU. My daughter, who is now a senior in college, also had strong stats (although not as good as you son’s) and was also deferred EA when we thought this choice was a strong fit. She was eventually waitlisted in RD and then offered admissions the following year!!! with a scholarship to boot. Needless to say we declined the offer and my daughter is about to graduate from our state flagship after a great four years with a near 4.0 gpa and close to top of her class.
My wife would not allow my DS 22 to apply this year to CWRU after this experience four years ago. I remember other applicants with strong stats also had similar issues.
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Yes - there are PHDs teaching everywhere and someone else said calculus is calculus.
The formulas/answers don’t change.
But as a society, we have valued one school’s calculus class over another.
That’s consumer driven.
A Mercedes and a Kia will drive you to the exact same locaiton.
One has a logo you would recognize and pay a premium for. The other - people wouldn’t know the logo and it’s considered lesser.
But they both do the exact same thing - transport you from point A to point B. When you get to point B - it’s the same point B whether you are in a Benz or a Kia, etc.
What I was trying to say. But Mercedes or BMW has the power of that logo to command a premium - and the consumer oohs and aahs when they see that logo even though, it’s main duty is no different than that of a Mazda, Kia, Fiat or any other lesser perceived vehicle.
Even calculus classes can be very different. They may share some basics, but a calculus course at Caltech, for example, looks nothing like a calculus course at your local CC.
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I really appreciate the thoughtful reply. I thought the same as well - probably a diversity thing. I’m pretty sure I exceeded in every aspect so not sure why I would be nothing less than accepted. Who knows - I applied last minute anyway and if they aren’t going to give merit-based aid, almost no chance I’m going there.
Only reason why I was worried is “how am I going to get into better schools if I got deferred from Fordham?” Hopefully it was a factor outside of my control, or even better - yield protection.
Sorry, straw men are not allowed.
Back to the subject: yield protection.
You will never get definitive proof (would require and admission of the practice by the school).
But certain schools seem to have quite a bit of circumstantial evidence surrounding their decisions. CWRU seems to fall into this bucket.
So our decision becomes, do we take the “free” lottery ticket that the fee waiver is? Its low probability of admission and gives the school what it wants…more and more applicants.
Or
Do we avoid the school altogether.
I can’t vouch for the Calculus instructors at CalTec but one of the best instructors of Calculus that I have come across, and that teaches many college students with middling Calculus instructors through his YouTube lectures, is a community college instructor form what I know; Prof. Leonard. Effective and not so effective instruction happens at all levels of higher Ed. I think I’m off topic though so I’ll stop. I thought I’d put a plug in for Prof. Leonard because my kids and I are huge fans.
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Given that they admitted in 2020 8804 kids and 1305 enrolled - so less than 15% - is it really yield protection?
We don’t know how many of that 1305 came in ED - well - I can’t find it…
is it really yield protection as their RD yield has to be really low?
Of 29K applicants, a third were offered spots on the WL…think about that…it’s insane. and of that WL - 1,075 were offered admission. What # of that 1,075 accepted I dunno.
I don’t think it’s about yield protection there as their yield is low.
I think it’s about putting themselves in the best position to ensure they fill seats - i.e. they’re playing from behind, not ahead.
If the school is a fit you apply. It’s easy to just pick the top schools from US News. It’s tough to make a thoughtful list of schools that are a fit.
No way to definitively know if the school practices yield protection. Unless you have an “in” with admissions it’s only speculation.
There will be curveballs during the app process both good and bad. Enjoy the ride.
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There’re wonderful teachers/instructors at community colleges, and indeed, at every level. The point I made is about the depth of the contents, the problem sets, the exams, and what are required for their students to be considered to have mastered the materials.
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True- any accusation of yield protection is just that. It cannot be proven.
But there are things that would seem consistent with the practice:
1- What appear to be very qualified kids being denied if they applied EA. Kids above their range. Almost certainly they have AI/Consultants that calculate a probability of matriculation and weed these out. Yes, we have no idea if there was a red flag in their applications (they seemed to be admitted elsewhere, so it might be less likely). Its not hard to imagine that these kids would be admitted if they were ED.
2- A massive number of kids on the WL. None affects yield, but they could have a huge impact on it if there is a wink and a nod agreement: “if we admit you, you are coming, right”. This is a nice source of high yield students.
3- The massive amount of deferrals, presumably to let people really demonstrate more interest.
I do not accept CWRU’s paltry yield as evidence that they do not yield protect- rather evidence of their need to do it and do it much better than they currently do if this matters to them. All evidence seems to indicate it does matter.