Understood - as that’s what I said in the rest of my post you didnt quote – buts it seems to be going off on a tangent from the original discussion. No matter. Time to get back on point (and I don’t mean the head of a pin).
MODERATOR’S NOTE: Please get back on topic.
Rather than asking “Lots oF People Reject Ivies?”, I think a better question is “Lots oF Parents Reject Ivies? (due to financial reason)” Here is one example – start reading from http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/21568255/#Comment_21568255 or if you are interested, you can read from the beginning.
I received inside tips telling me that they are actually pretty rich, even have a vacation home. But they just don’t want to pay, despite the fact that their daughter refused to talk to them for weeks. Hopefully, everything is fine now.
I wonder if this could also be cultural. I have a few Asian friends. Extremely bright and wonderful, motivated, high achieving students. All of them have told me that their parents can afford to pay sticker price for private school but have made it very clear that they will do so only for a very very small set of schools. It is strange though. The list is the same for all of them: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Berkeley (willing to fund OOS). They won’t pay sticker price for any other private school!! To my friends’ parents only these schools command a significant premium. To go private at other schools these kids would need huge merit aid. So many of them will target colleges like Vandy, Tulane etc even though they may have a fighting shot at the Ivies.
@surelyhuman Vandy & Tulane type high ranked schools for half the price of top 10 schools provide a great educational value for full payment families. Ivies havd their worth but not they aren’t worth going broke.
I don’t understand. What is so unusual about choosing a non Ivy over an Ivy? Does anyone think when given the chance every student or family would or should prefer an Ivy?
@Riversider Of course, I totally get that and that was my point. Some parents will not be willing to pay full price for most of the Ivies because they are value shoppers and feel that unless there is a significant price discount those schools are not worth the cost compared to a merit award school like Tulane or Vandy. Even there it will depend on the size of the merit award. So that may drive down the yield of the Ivies. I know my Asian friends are probably going to apply to schools other than HSM in RD rounds but will almost certainly choose a state school option if they don’t get significant aid. They will count as lost yield for those other schools. I know of kids in my school who have turned down Brown, Duke, Northwestern, Cornell and Dartmouth to go to cheaper public school or merit based private schools
@ccdad99 Clearly not. And that is the reason the yield rate of most the Ivies is lower than 75% as observed by @Riversider. For example, from my limited time on CC it is clear that many posters here would happily choose some non Ivies like Stanford, MIT, Chicago and Duke over some ivies like Brown, Dartmouth or Cornell. There are also many kids that choose Private schools with strong merit aid over any of the Ivies. Some of it is prestige related, some fit related, some finance related, some may even be geographic preference
I took a stab at calculating regular decision yield rates based on publicly disclosed numbers. I am sure they aren’t exact but they are undoubtedly close and insightful.
Brown 50.7%
Columbia 47.3%
Cornell 46.4%
Dartmouth 43%
Harvard 70.2%
Penn 46.8%
Princeton 45.3%
Yale 67.8%
The reality is that any applicant to get into an Ivy RD has managed to stand out within a cohort against a roughly 5% acceptance rate (average TD for Ivy). No surprise that these candidates will have multiple offers whether from other ivies, comparable elites like Stanford, UC, MIT, Duke, or merit opportunities at great schools. That likelihood is supported by the RD yield rates I point to above.
Incorporating EA, ED into the yield calculations distorts what is really going on. For EA many applicants if accepted don’t apply elsewhere and obviously EDis binding.
Typically it appears that Ivy acceptances have at least one other great option to choose from which seems logical given the standard required to have the ivy admit.
When choosing between the aforementioned elite options the Ivy moniker isn’t the deciding factor. For my kid he was lucky enough to be choosing between two ivies and Duke. Ultimately choose one of the Ivies based on fit but Duke not being part of the athletic conference wasn’t part of the discussion. He was truly indifferent towards the Ivy allure and visited all schools with an open mind.
"I know of kids in my school who have turned down Brown, Duke, Northwestern, Cornell and Dartmouth to go to cheaper public school or merit based private schools "
Two years ago, one of the graduating seniors in my son’s HS turned down Yale for our state flagship. Last year, one of the seniors turned down Stanford to go to a Boston area college that isn’t H or MIT. Both decisions involved large differences in $.
As tough as it is for the prestige-driven to believe, there are people who are not and who are making decisions based on other factors, from individual major strength and fit to cost.
“I received inside tips telling me that they are actually pretty rich, even have a vacation home. But they just don’t want to pay, despite the fact that their daughter refused to talk to them for weeks.”
I read the thread that you linked, @nrtlax33, and it’s clear that the daughter did NOT “refuse to talk to them for weeks.” Why are you spreading misinformation?
^I would also suggest it is not appropriate for anyone to opine on someone else’s financial decisions. No matter what “inside” info we think we might have we don’t have the full picture. Elder care, sibling needs, healthcare, job prospects etc represent just a few of a potential myriad of possible factors that are entirely private matters. Always sound advice not to spend other people’s money or attempt to impose our individual value system on others.
I would also add that although price is an important factor for many, there could be others whose main reason for turning down an Ivy offer is something else. Ivies are undoubtedly great schools, but for every IV there is at least one (sometimes multiple) non Ivy option that is an equivalent in size, feel, academic rigor, even prestige etc.
This seems a bit off. The overall class of 2022 yield rate for Princeton was 69% (https://paw.princeton.edu/article/yield-class-22-exceeds-target-10-transfers-enroll), or 1,339 enrolled out of 1,941 admits. Even assuming 100% enrollment of single choice EA admits (799), the regular decision yield would be (1,339-799)÷(1,941-799) or 47%. If single choice EA enrolled at a more realistic 85%, then the regular decision yield would be (1,339-799*0.85)÷(1,941-799) or 58%.
I have confirmed that @Nocreativity1 's calculation for Brown is correct (class of 2022). Personally I think SCEA is more like EA (not exactly the same, since most CHOOSE not to apply to other places once accepted), so yield rate for SCEA can’t be calculated using RD data.
Foosondaughter- my methodology will understate RD yield by assuming 100% EA enrollment.
I used an enrolled number of 1,196 less the 779 accepted EA which would leave 517 spots to be filled by the 1,142 accepted RD. That would be a 45.3% RD yield.
Agreed that 100% ED is unrealistic. Apologies.
Instead let’s use 80% for ED or 623 of the 779 enrolled. Leaves 673 spots filled by the 1,142 accepted RD. That’s a 58.9% yield.
Again sorry and other EA schools should be similarly scaled.
@surelyhuman I think that attitude is not uncommon among all parents, not just Asian Americans. Let’s face it. Big money allows you to build big brand names. There are no U.S. colleges that have bigger brand names around the world than Harvard, Stanford and MIT.
I personally did not want my Asian American (CA resident) kid to attend Berkeley or Harvard or MIT (didn’t apply to either Harvard or MIT). I did not mind my kid attending UCLA or Stanford at full pay. If non CA resident, no UCLA either.
But if he really wanted to attend a no name college at full cost and gave me a good reason for it, I would have gone with his decision.
The Harvard lawsuit publications list specific yield numbers by RD/SCEA at http://samv91khoyt2i553a2t1s05i-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Doc-421-134-February-2013-Report.pdf . In the most recent available class of 2016,
SCEA yield was 94%
RD yield was 68%
Overall yield was 80%
The history trend line shows that as Harvard becomes more selective over time, the early yield increases. So I’d expect the early yield to be higher than 94% today. In short, I think 100% ED yield is a better estimate than 80% for extremely selective colleges with outstanding FA.
^These numbers suggest that SCEA is no different than ED for all practical purposes. It just has a fancier name. Better call it SCED
What is the source of these numbers? I see that the 2017-2018 Common Data Set (CDS) is now available (https://registrar.princeton.edu/university_enrollment_sta/common_cds_2017-2018.pdf) and specifies (see section C1):
- Total first-time, first-year Fall 2017 freshman men + women who were admitted: 1,990
- Total first-time, first-year Fall 2017 freshman men + women who enrolled: 1,306
And from https://www.princeton.edu/news/2017/12/13/princeton-offers-early-action-admission-799-students-class-2022: - Applicants admitted SCEA: 799
Based on those numbers, and assuming 90% SCEA enrollment (increased based on what @Data10 found for Harvard): (1,306-799*0.9)÷(1,990-799) = 49% regular decision yield