The low expected yield rate of Class of 2021

Colleges and Universities A-Z Williams College
1

https://communications.williams.edu/news-releases/3_23_2017_admittedstudents/

of Applicants: 8593

of RD accept: 996

of ED accept: 257

of students joining from last year gap year: 13

Class size expected: 550

So basically, Williams admitted 996 students hoping to fill the rest of their class. 550 - 13 -257= 280.

This lead to an expected yield rate of ~28%(~29% if Williams expected 10 gapyear students.)
I am honestly puzzled as to why Williams continues to accept more and more students each year(1159 for class of 2019, 1206 in 2020) while tanking its yield rate. Swarthmore has an expected yield rate of about 42%, which blows Williams out of the water.

2

A final yield number can only be determined once the wl is closed. If Williams accepted fewer RD students and then had to take more off the wl, that would be figured into the yield. The only real way for schools to try to control yield, is by taking more at ED.

3

The number of students that a school needs to accept to fill their class is driven by their historical/predicted yield rate, not vice versa. Accepting more students than what historical yield rates would indicate to fill the class would result in too many students matriculating. @wisteria100 is correct that the most effective way to affect yield is through ED.

4

@williams2021, you are comparing Swarthmore’s overall (ED + RD) yield with Williams’ RD yield.

Using your analysis, here are the numbers for Swarthmore last year (from their CDS):

of Applicants: 7717

of RD accept: 774

of ED accept: 214

of students joining from last year gap year: ?

Class size expected: 400 (ish?)

Swarthmore admitted 774 students hoping to fill the rest of their class. 400 - 214 = 186.
Which equates to a 24% yield for RD.

Williams overall yield last year was 45%. (1230 admitted, 553 enrolled)

When you compare apples to apples, Williams has a slightly higher yield.

1 Like
5

Exactly. You’re looking at William’s RD yield, which is completely different from combined yields. Here were the RD yields of top LACs of the most recent enrolled class, next to the combined yield:

Williams: 32%; 45%
Amherst: 30%; 41%
Swarthmore: 26%; 42% (numbers above are somewhat off, Swarthmore enrolled 415 making the yield 201/774 or 26%)
Pomona: 38%; 54%
Bowdoin: 35%; 50%
Middlebury: 20%; 43% (confusing because of Feb admits, but I’m going by CDS)
Carleton: 18%; 39%
Davidson: 26%; 46%
Wesleyan: 20%; 36%

Williams is actually doing pretty well. Why the huge discrepancy? Depends on how many students the school takes through ED- those kids are basically 100% yield.

6

@nostalgicwisdom do you know what they are for Vassar and Haverford?

7

@tonroxmysox

Vassar- 24% RD yield, 34% total yield
Haverford- 25% RD yield, 40% total yield

8

Wesleyan’s yield is a little off from above. They made some errors on their CDS (reported that they took 2129 students, which is why I got 20% RD yield) but they just uploaded a new updated one, so the correct numbers are:

1354 total admitted
427 ED admits
774 enrolled

total yield: 57%
RD yield: 37%

9

Wait…that’s so weird. No, the CDS is the same as before.

Wesleyan here reports: 2129 admitted students and a 17.7% admit rate-http://www.wesleyan.edu/admission/apply/classprofile.html
But here, they report they took 1354 students and a 11.4% admit rate: http://www.wesleyan.edu/ir/data-sets/cds2016-17.pdf

Something is really off. Anyone have explanations? Because in one, the RD yield is 20%/36%, and in the other the yield is what I calculated above.

10

Wesleyan numbers from http://www.wesleyan.edu/ir/data-sets/cds2016-17.pdf, excluding wait list :


Applied     Men: 4592   Women: 7336   Total: 11928
                     Early Decision Applied:  1017
                   Regular Decision Applied: 10911 
Admitted    Men:  946   Women: 1183   Total:  2129
                    Early Decision Admitted:   427
                  Regular Decision Admitted:  1702 
Admit Rate  Men: 20.6%  Women: 16.1%  Total:  17.8%
                  Early Decision Admit Rate:  42.0% 
                Regular Decision Admit Rate:  15.6% 
Enrolled    Men:  354   Women:  420   Total:   774
                    Early Decision Enrolled:   427
                  Regular Decision Enrolled:   347 
Yield Rate  Men: 37.4%  Women: 35.5%  Total:  36.4%
                  Early Decision Yield Rate: 100.0% 
                Regular Decision Yield Rate:  20.4%
11

great thread… gives me hope for my son. :slight_smile: