<p>So apparently Taft are over enrolled this year so this years admissions cycle will be especially tough.</p>
<p>I thought last year taft and all the schools had their highest number of applicants in a while, must be the same this year as well</p>
<p>Crap… I was really liking Taft. What grade did they over-enroll? This year’s 9th grade?</p>
<p>Some times schools will create a buzz to increase applications. Take everything you see here with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>If it’s true that Taft is saying that it overenrolled, I’m not sure how they’d be creating a “buzz” by signaling that (a) it will be more competitive to get admitted this year because we underestimated our yield and not because we made any particular improvements; (b) in the event your child is accepted and matriculates and if we screw up again there’s a good chance s/he’ll be bunking in the chapel until we sort things out; and (c) there’s a greater chance your child will have to take classes where we’ve got empty seats and not where class placement is what makes sense or where you’d prefer, and (d) come time for college placement…if we haven’t thinned out the herd…there may have to be some tightening of the rules and understandings about how many Ivies and top-LACs each applicant can shoot for.</p>
<p>It’s not a pretty thing and it’s a message that’s about as opposite of creating a “buzz” as I can think of. It rates slightly behind, “Campus to be entirely rebuilt over next five years!” as news that would attract new applicants.</p>
<p>Taft only has 588 seats in their auditorium so that is the max number of students. That is how the number of students has always been determined. Maybe some years they have 585 586 but I don’t think it is some huge number difference. They have not told parents they are over enrolled and my daughter has not said anything about it.</p>
<p>DMaker: It’s marketing 101, It’s OK if it’s not obvious to some.</p>
<p>I do not have any knowledge about Taft, but my daughter’s school was overenrolled last year. They had to place 3 kids in rooms the size of doubles and it caused huge problems. My daughter was in one of the triples and it was miserable. The only option they could offer these kids who could not sleep in overcrowded conditions was to stay in the health center overnight. So, I think that in these times of record applications, all of the schools must carefully manage their yield so to not have more students than they have room for.</p>
<p>Over enrollment seems to be the trend at many top BS’s these days. (When I took my son to his BS a few weeks ago, one of the teachers helping new students move into their rooms told me that the school had over 600 kids enrolled this year, which number was the highest ever at the school.) </p>
<p>What is going on here? Are more and more prep schools growing fearful that this economy will not turn around anytime soon and, therefore, need to enroll as many students, especially full pay students, as the rooms at the schools can bear? Just a guess. I surely don’t know. Something is up, so it seems.</p>
<p>We see private schools in our area advertize in Newspapers which aren’t used to doing so in the past. Probably a reflection on the economy.</p>
<p>Toombs61, I think part of the equation must be the yield, as sk8 pointed out. Local public schools are feeling the pinch, and cutting their programs. Private schools are expensive, but they do offer the “extras,” such as sports and the arts. (I put “extras” in quotation marks, because I don’t think cutting those parts of the school experience leads to a good education.)</p>
<p>A not so subtle diss of the D’yer Maker!!</p>
<p>FWIW, D’s school (BERKSHIRE) has the largest enrollment ever this year.</p>
<p>It’s not only the dorm and living space that is being affected when there is overenrollment. My son said that his class size at his BS is averaging 15. In all the brochures, it lists the average class size as 12. Overenrollment also means larger class size!!</p>
<p>Little Update: Taft has 13 more students than last year.</p>
<p>redbluegoldgreen: it could be that upper level courses are much smaller. A few language classes or advanced science courses with only a few students could affect the school’s overall class size.</p>
<p>@f-i-f…Wrong-o! That’s not a diss. That’s a “buzz” in Marketing 101. And now, if you excuse me, I have to go check my mailbox for the resultant increased applications.</p>
<p>From Taft: “…Taft received an unprecedented number of inquiries and saw a 20% increase in applicants - a total of 1575 applications for fewer than 200 spots…Interestingly, the total number of students at the school 588 - is determined simply by the number of seats available in the auditorium, in order to accommodate the entire school for assemblies…”</p>
<p>It’s not over enrolled. It’s at maximum capacity.</p>
<p><em>kicking myself that I didn’t think of that user id</em></p>
<p>@Exie- Technically compared to previous years they are over-enrolled but yes according to their “maximum” capicity they are just at the limit.</p>
<p>Swissbrit, I’ll concede the point. As long as my D is happy and has a confirmed seat in the auditorium I’m good with their numbers. I’m betting all of the kids who accepted this year were happy to be “squeezed” in. It was smiles all around on move-in day :-)</p>