<p>I coded publics as 1 and privates as 0, and being private (expensive?) has a negative effect on yield.</p>
<p>I am not surprized. Most applicants for privates are going to apply to several safeties, matches and reaches. Around here, many HS seniors apply to one or two publics and nowhere else. Financial aid and admissions are highly predictable.</p>
<p>schools with a surprisingly low yield:
U Rochester
Carnegie Mellon
Emory
Johns Hopkins
Washington U St Louis
Scripps
Mudd
Macalester
Grinnell
Hamilton
Oberlin
Colgate
Vassar</p>
<p>My impression is that if you are near the bottom of your peer group, then your yield will be low, , even if you are among an elite peer group (the cross-applicant colleges are highly selective). In other words, this ranking by yield is probably a ranking of relative standing among peer institutions. Brigham Young has no peer institution. U Texas ranks high among flagship publics. harvard ranks high among Ivies. And, so on.</p>
<p>By the way, the statistics I presented are the proportion of ADMITTED students who ENROLL. It is the number of freshmen who enroll divided by the number who were accepted. This is called "yield" and it is not related to how many applications a school receives. </p>
<p>The ADMIT RATE or ACCEPTANCE RATE is related to the number of applications. ADMIT RATE is the number of acceptances divided by the number of applications.</p>
<p>That seems about right to me. Those are all good schools that are notorious second choice colleges. Do you not put Tufts on your list because you're not surprised it has a 31% yield or because you forgot to include it. It's certainly in the running with those schools, but may be the most well-known second choice school. I'm surprised that Amherst's yield is barely better at 38%. I wonder if that's a one year anomoly.</p>
<p>I should have included Tufts in my list of surprisingly low yields.</p>
<p>UC-Riverside: America's Safety School.</p>
<p>so therefore, more accurately, the categories go like this,</p>
<p>PRIVATE SECULAR:</p>
<ol>
<li>HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1580 2054 1638 0.8</li>
<li>PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 1560 1733 1175 0.68</li>
<li>YALE UNIVERSITY 1560 2014 1353 0.67</li>
<li>STANFORD UNIVERSITY 1550 2486 1649 0.66</li>
<li>MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 1560 1665 1077 0.65</li>
<li>UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 1510 3878 2433 0.63</li>
<li>COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK 1560 2275 1331 0.59</li>
<li>BROWN UNIVERSITY 1520 2505 1429 0.57</li>
<li>DARTMOUTH COLLEGE 1550 2173 1077 0.5</li>
<li>DUKE UNIVERSITY 1530 3804 1640 0.43</li>
<li>NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY 1500 4702 1941 0.41</li>
<li>RICE UNIVERSITY 1540 1802 727 0.4</li>
<li>NEW YORK UNIVERSITY 1410 12008 4619 0.38</li>
<li>WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY 1410 2945 1121 0.38</li>
<li>VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY 1440 4280 1602 0.37</li>
<li>CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 1570 566 207 0.37</li>
<li>UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 1530 3503 1217 0.35</li>
<li>UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 1440 8037 2770 0.34</li>
<li>WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST LOUIS 1520 4400 1453 0.33</li>
<li>GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 1370 7103 2266 0.32</li>
<li>TUFTS UNIVERSITY 1470 4031 1273 0.32</li>
<li>JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 1490 3613 1128 0.31</li>
<li>EMORY UNIVERSITY 1460 4357 1296 0.3</li>
<li>LEHIGH UNIVERSITY 1380 3749 1055 0.28</li>
<li>SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY 1320 9463 2671 0.28</li>
<li>BOSTON UNIVERSITY 1390 15191 3961 0.26</li>
<li>UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI 1350 7784 2043 0.26</li>
</ol>
<p>PRIVATE NONSECULAR:</p>
<ol>
<li>Brigham Young University 1320 7023 5548 0.79</li>
<li>Yeshiva University 1350 1465 916 0.63</li>
<li>University Of Notre Dame 1470 3488 1985 0.57</li>
<li>Georgetown University 1470 3243 1542 0.48</li>
<li>Pepperdine University 1310 1756 727 0.41</li>
<li>Baylor University 1290 7924 2785 0.35</li>
<li>Brandeis University 1440 2524 823 0.33</li>
<li>Boston College 1410 7178 2309 0.32</li>
<li>Southern Methodist University 1300 4136 1313 0.32</li>
<li>Saint Louis University-main Campus 1320 5357 1456 0.27</li>
<li>Marquette University 1280 6850 1807 0.26</li>
<li>Fordham University 1290 7188 1703 0.24</li>
</ol>
<p>PUBLIC:</p>
<ol>
<li>The University Of Tennessee 1240 4793 4422 0.92</li>
<li>The University Of Texas At Austin 1340 11788 6791 0.58</li>
<li>University Of Georgia 1320 8885 5190 0.58</li>
<li>Texas A & M University 1300 12426 7068 0.57</li>
<li>University Of Florida 1360 11928 6741 0.57</li>
<li>University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill 1390 6441 3516 0.55</li>
<li>University Of Virginia-main Campus 1430 5760 3113 0.54</li>
<li>Cornell University-endowed Colleges 1490 6130
3054 0.5</li>
<li>University Of Illinois At Urbana-champaign 1410 13939 6811 0.49</li>
<li>Ohio State University-main Campus 1280 12822 6057 0.47</li>
<li>University Of Missouri-columbia 1280 10100 4668 0.46</li>
<li>Iowa State University 1230 8273 3729 0.45</li>
<li>University Of Michigan-ann Arbor 1390 13304 6040 0.45</li>
<li>University Of Washington-seattle Campus 1310 11156 4977 0.45</li>
<li>Michigan State University 1240 17343 7607 0.44
16.georgia Institute Of Technology-main Campus 1430 6008 2579 0.43</li>
<li>Clemson University 1300 7287 3019 0.41</li>
<li>University Of California-berkeley 1450 8833 3653 0.41</li>
<li>University Of Minnesota-twin Cities 1280 13707 5588 0.41</li>
<li>University Of Wisconsin-madison 1390 13447 5579 0.41</li>
<li>College Of William And Mary 1440 3368 1341 0.4</li>
<li>University Of California-los Angeles 1410 10577 4268 0.4</li>
<li>Stevens Institute Of Technology 1390 1121 438 0.39</li>
<li>Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State Univ 1290 12771 4943 0.39</li>
<li>University Of Maryland-college Park 1370 11499 4200 0.37</li>
</ol>
<p>elsijfdl-
I like how you grouped them. It's very interesting to see how they sort out in those groups.</p>
<p>The Tennessee numbers from IPEDS must be incorrect. In 2003, the yield for Tennessee was as follows:
number of acceptances=6790
number enrolled=3579
yield=53% or .53
This would place Tennessee between UVA and Illinois.</p>
<p>Although Cornell has some New York State supplemented colleges, the "endowed" colleges refers to the private part of Cornell.</p>
<p>Seeing U Texas and U Georgia at the top of the publics made me think that they must not be in the same peer group with schools like Berkeley and Michigan. I think the ranking by yield shows how well schools draw against the schools with which they have the most cross-admits. I don't know who the peer schools would be based on cross-admits. Berkeley is probably in a peer group with Michigan, Harvard, and other top national universities. Hence, the relatively low yield for Berkeley among the publics. Texas probably competes for students with places like Rice and Arizona...southwestern schools...but I am just guessing.</p>
<p>So the yield ranking shows how well schools draw against their peers, whoever those peers might be. It might be characterized as "niche dominance". But we aren't sure which niche these schools are in.</p>
<p>Texas and Texas A&M both have low OOS targets (%OOS in freshman class at 5% and 4%). That may be one of the reasons why their yields are so high. Similarly for UIUC(7%) and UNC(17%).</p>
<p>The Tennessee number must be wrong. For 2005, the enrolled/admitted numbers are 4265/9060 for yield of 0.471.</p>
<p>Texas and Texas A&M both have low OOS targets (%OOS in freshman class at 5% and 4%). That may be one of the reasons why their yields are so high. Similarly for UIUC(7%) and UNC(17%).</p>
<p>The Tennessee number must be wrong. For 2005, the enrolled/admitted numbers are 4265/9060 for yield of 0.471.</p>
<p>"My impression is that if you are near the bottom of your peer group, then your yield will be low.." This seems like a circular argument to me, especially because it is all but impossible to define peer groups. In many cases, I think it is possible to identify more specific causes for the low yield. Sometimes it is as simple as location. URochester is a good example. UR is known as a good safety school for those whose reaches include the Ivies or near Ivies. To you that might mean that UR is at the bottom of some semi-elite peer group. To me it means that UR is a good safety because they make a lot of offers due to a low yield. The reason UR is in this position seems very obvious. The city of Rochester is not attractive and the climate is just downright miserable. Hopkins is another example. Baltimore does have the inner harbor area, but otherwise it is mostly a large, poor slum with very high murder and crime rates. Baltimore does seem to be cleaning itself up. If that continues, I would be willing to bet the Hopkins yield increases.</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon, Oberlin and Hopkins all have substantial music schools. Hardly any school is a safety for a musician so a large number of applications is common.</p>
<p>I would suspect financial considerations are also important. Everything else being equal poor FA might result in a low yield.</p>
<p>Rather than say that some schools are at the bottom of an imaginary peer group, I think there are more specific reasons and if you investigate each school you will probably discover those reasons.</p>
<p>I think you have to just give up on classifying CMU. It ranges from one of the very top places in the country in some areas, to much lower on prestige lists in others. Aggregating this just mixes it all together in a not very informative way.</p>
<p>One factor I don't see included in this analysis of yield is the use of ED. Those schools that fill a large portion of their classes ED will automatically have a high yield. So Penn, for example, shoots up the chart by this simple metric. EA has a similar effect, not binding, but people who get in EA have months to think of themselves at the elite where they know they are in, by the time the RD rounds come out many have fallen in love with the first place they heard from. </p>
<p>Collegehelp, did you try including in your model whether a college has ED, EA, SCEA, or none of the above? If they have early admissions, what portion of the class is filled from the early round? A less satisfying approach is to look only at the RD yield. However, besides being tricky to get the data, it also excludes all those students for who the college was such a clear first choice that they applied early.</p>
<p>edad-
I agree completely that there are specific reasons for low yield like the ones you named: climate, location, attractiveness of city, financial aid, presence of a special school (music). I don't think this is incompatible with the idea that low yield indicates how you stack up against your peer schools (those with high numbers of cross-admits, competitor schools). The specific reasons you named, and others, account for poorer drawing power relative to peer schools.</p>
<p>I would say that the peer (competitor) schools for any particular college are not generally public knowledge. But, they are not exactly "imaginary". I think the colleges themselves know exactly who their competitors are.</p>
<p>afan-
CMU is pretty unique with its mix of science, engineering, theater, and art. Different schools within CMU probably have different sets of peer (competitor) schools.</p>
<p>The IPEDS website does not have numbers of ED and EA, as far as I know. But, isn't a larger number of ED applicants just another indicator of the schools drawing power relative to peers? (I think you suggested this in your final sentence.) But, I see your point...ED takes the guesswork out of the admissions process and the more ED the higher the yield...true. It would be very helpful and interesting to include ED/EA in the model but, as you said, it is hard to get that data.</p>
<p>I simply crunched the numbers available from IPEDS. I wish I had more time to pursue these other interesting questions.</p>
<p>The IPEDS data may say "Cornell University--Endowed Colleges," but I believe that the actual data are for all of Cornell. </p>
<p>This is evident from the number who enrolled -- just over 3000. Cornell's target enrollment level for incoming freshman classes, from the endowed and contract (state-assisted) colleges combined, is 3050. Of these students, roughly 2000 are in the endowed colleges and 1050 are in the contract colleges.</p>
<p>Marian-
I checked the Cornell website. You are correct. The Cornell numbers are for all of Cornell, not just the endowed colleges.</p>
<p>The early admissions are very often used by students hedging their bets "I am a good candidate for an Ivy, maybe I would get in Harvard, but if I apply to Penn ED I have a very good shot at admission. Therefore, I would rather apply ED to Penn, and go there, than risk not getting into Penn or Harvard RD."</p>
<p>So Penn may not be the first choice, but it gets the applications ED for this reason. Yield is too confounded by this effect.</p>