We also filed FAFSA and CSS way back when it first opened, and we also have straightforward finances. We haven’t had a single financial aid request from any school. We’re only waiting on offers at 2 of them, and all the others have been admits with aid, including need-based. I haven’t read anything into financial info requests or lack thereof.
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Rankings can offer some useful information, but they have limited utility for us. The specialized rankings (like from professional orgs) are more useful than the generic ones, but still do not give a full picture. And as @Mashinations said, some professional orgs hesitate to do them because people get so caught up in splitting hairs.
South Carolina is a great school. The nice thing about public flagships is that they tend to be at least solid in just about everything they offer. It’s hard to go wrong. They are well-known schools and people respect their degrees. Good luck to your daughter!
My daughter as well, also for communications! Maybe they’ll end up together, hopefully at Syracuse but maybe at UofSC.
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This is what I mean. I’ve seen the overall yield rate for Syracuse is 17%, so are we inferring that Newhouse is 2.5-3 times the university’s rate? I doubt that is the case and think that would be something the school would surely publicize. If we say that the yield (not the acceptance rate) is 25%, a huge bump from the overall yield, to get to 425 kids from 5,000 (also taking into account that some click Newhouse as their #2 option on the application) they need to accept 1700-1800 kids out of the 5,000, the acceptance rate is probably more like 35-40%, which is still much lower than the overall university and lower than other journalism schools.
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How do you know they were the ones that updated your FAFSA? Are they the only school that was applied to?
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Hi! I’m a freshman in Newhouse in the Broadcast major, and I can tell you that there were only 425 people admitted out of the 5,000 for my year. 1 out of 10 people were admitted we were told, and there’s about 2,000 people in Newhouse combined from undergrads and graduate students. It is very competitive to get in. I didn’t believe the numbers were that way myself when I first heard them too.
Thanks but you’re missing a step in your equation. You’re implying that they accepted 425 people out of 5,000 and every single one of them chose to attend Syracuse (even MIT has “only” an 80% yield) :).
I have no doubt that it’s very competitive to get in - not disputing that - but even a “high yield” program is in the 30-35% range suggesting that they accepted 1,200-1,400 of those 5K (25-30% acceptance rate). Still about 1/2 the overall school average but not 10%.
Congratulations to you on making that cut!
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Hi - That is not correct. There were 425 people who accepted and are attending - many more people were admitted, who did not decide to go for whatever reason. If 425 were admitted and everyone attended, then are you saying the yield is 100%? Harvard has the highest yield rate at about 85% - which is crazy. To get to 425 attending, you need to accept way more people - that is what the yield is. Syracuse University’s stated yield is 17%, so if you have 5000 people apply and you need to get to 425, you need to accept 2500 kids. Maybe Newhouse has a higher yield, but it’s not so out of whack with the rest of the university with the stats being basically the same (3.8 and 1290 SAT).
The FAFSA is something you file with the federal gov’t. The school should have no ability to change a single thing on it. That’s not to say they might not ask for additional information and look at something differently than its laid out on the FAFSA but they can’t change what you submitted to studentaid.
The supporting documents and interpretation of things can be difficult. I’d be inclined to work through it on the phone with them rather than through email when you don’t know if it’s some intern or grad student that could be monitoring that channel.
Best of luck.
@mashinations - yes exactly. Top tier schools like Duke and Johns Hopkins have yield rates around 50% so my guess is that Newhouse is probably a little higher than Syracuse U’s 17% but closer to 20% (which is where I think the 20% comes from - yield and not acceptance rate)
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A 10% acceptance rate for Newhouse would imply that 500 students were accepted for 425 spots, which would give it a yield of 85%, higher than any Ivy League School outside of maybe Harvard, higher than Stanford (80%), Duke (55%), etc etc.
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https://udc.vt.edu/irdata/data/students/admission/index#college
This is Virginia Tech and the most complete/transparent data set I’ve seen from a college around admissions and enrollment by program. It doesn’t give data around who got in EA, RD, etc - but can highlight how different programs can have VERY different numbers. Gives the ability to parse by Gender, Ethnicity, IS/OOS… etc.
Not really relevant to Syracuse admissions but thought some might find it interesting given the conversation.
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Last year, my daughter got her Syracuse decision at 5:00 pm ET on Friday 3/18. Some came a week later, but I think all of the decisions went live on Fridays at 5. Just a few more hours! 
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GOOD LUCK TO ALL!!! Go ‘Cuse!
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Agree - good luck to everyone!
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A school does have the ability to change things on the FAFSA and change your EFC, for sure. They have access to do that. The government then sends you an email telling you a school has made changes, but they dont tell you which one. To figure out what changes were made you would have to go line by line in each Student Aid Report (SAR), but a college can go into your FAFSA at any time and make changes…
I am currently a freshman at Syracuse right now… I am not sure if this will help anyone or make anyone feel more stressed. FIrst, I know this waiting absolutely sucks. I went through all of this last year at this time, and the whole fear of the unknown and the non-specific dates is a really big pain. You will know very, very soon; trust me on that. From what I have heard through friends that are in admissions and other people in the grapevine, the release date could be today, or a little later, but the wait is almost over.
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I stand corrected! Though it seems incredibly strange to me that a school can change your submission.
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Thanks! Are you in Newhouse?
We are on pins and needles here! 
Its actually really unsettling! You would think that they wouldnt be able to - bc we submit all the confidential information…last year a college went in and changed our EFC to $100 more than the previous SAR, and adjusted an amount we had previously entered (I cant remember what line it was) Maybe it didnt match up with our CSS? Not sure. I would think they cant change any info the IRS retrieval tool pulled.
