Specific to Exeter, if their yield is 80%, they should have admitted more than enough kids. I overheard how many packages they sent out this year. My best guess is that they budgeted for a lower yield than 80%. If yield is 80%, they will be over enrolled.
That being said, it doesn’t mean there’s absolutely no chance. I think in the last year or two, someone said he got off the wl because of the sport he played.
Exeter’s deposit is only 2500, which makes it less painful to back out before 7/1 than most other schools. So maybe someone will forfeit the deposit and leaves a spot open. But if they are over enrolled, it won’t help.
I can see they fill a very specific need by going to the waitlist, but you have to be the exact one they are looking for. Not only you have to play that sport, you have to play that position. Chances are next to none unfortunately.
The first choice we applied last year, it appeared that the yield was almost 100%, so fundamentally nobody was able to move out from WL, that was we were told.
One thing parent must be very clear and calm that, it really does not matter at all you go to your first choice, second choice or even public school, it is more about what you want to get/learn from the school, and will the school really 100% offer what you are looking for? very likely not.
On the other way, anxiety is not necessary, your acceptance to the first choice or dream school will prove anything of your kid? No, the admission is more about business and lucky draw.
As I said, the kid’s academic performance, athletic performance and other performance can make him equally good with any kid in any top school, but he was not admitted by the so called school, so? He has been thriving in his second school and every teacher loves him and he loves every teacher, he spends almost 10 hours in the school every day, what else we wanted?
The yield of your kid’s boarding school was 100%?
Do you mean that the school correctly predicted the actual yield and therefore didn’t need to go to the WList?
Those are two different things.
The highest yield US college is typically estimated to be MIT with around an 86% yield. I’ve never heard of a yield of 100% for a boarding school.
We were researching yield rates informally a couple of years ago and estimated the higher yielding schools were in the high 70s to 80% range.
Schools assume that at least some admitted kids won’t come so they calculate how many to admit and if they are correct, they won’t have to go to their wait list. If they are incorrect, they either have to go to the list or suddenly doubles become triples and triples become quads. Or they start putting bunk beds in attics, basements, and trailers.
The only exception to the above that I can imagine are schools that only admit to the upper grades if there has been attrition or schools that start boarding in 6th grade and only admit for a tiny number of ninth grade spots. In those cases, I think some schools might get over 80% yield or even 100% yield because they have room for only a handful of students. And by handful, I mean single digits! Five rising juniors and seniors leave and they get replaced with exactly five new upperclassmen handpicked to be very likely to matriculate. Otherwise, I suspect that even the most popular schools don’t get past about 85%. To be fair, I’ve never researched this so I’m guessing a bit.
If you check Harvard-Westlake, the annual average yield rate normally > 85%, however, last year, it was very very exceptional, it became one of the very top sought-after school. There was least amount of kids in the WL, however even that, they already knew almost everyone deposited in the required date, it was crazy.
Just pointing out that not going to WL does not mean yield is 100. It means that they correctly predicted their yield, so they accepted the right number of kids to yield the desired class size. So if they are usually 85% or above then they overaccepted the right number of kids assuming 85% (or whatever the number is) accept the offer. Note: the higher the yield, the easier it is to predict it, so this is all great but not super surprising. Especially in a day school like H/W where the competition school pool is more static.
Yup, not going to waitlist does not mean 100% yield it means expected yield. 100% yield would be an uh oh for pretty much any school as that is way more than predicted and space would be an issue, even for a day school.
Thanks for your clarification, we were same anxious last year, but really doesn’t matter, the son was rejected by a different school directly (it is not as good as the school he is in now, from any sense), so just go to where loves you.
It makes perfect sense to me. That’s because the school doesn’t know which bucket it might need to fill if it has to go to the wait list. Day or boarding? Musician or athlete or STEM orientation? Someone from the West Coast? Etc etc etc
I realized this year too, this year it looked like it was much easier for some schools too as I learned from the community. The situation for last year was, the second week following the admission notice week, we were told it was fully admitted, and the third week were asked to remove from the WL …
Still struggling with math. I understood that the previous post said 20 WL for DAY spots, not DAY+BOARDING. So 20 WL for 15 Day spots. Even if WL was 1:1, would be 15 WL max. If the 20WL are for DAY+Boarding 50 spots, that makes sense. But 20WL for 15 DAY spots where like 20 offers are already made based in yield is hard to follow. Thx.
Remember that not everyone offered a WL spot will take it. Maybe some got into their top 2 choices. This is all about the school having the person on their list that they need should the need arise.
And remember as well that some pieces of the puzzle get kinda mixrd up… They need two girl boarders and two girl day students, have enough FA for one of them, and also need at least one to play field hockey, one violin player, and one theater kid. And at least two should be URM. They don’t care if the special needs are met by day or boarder, URM, so they just need to get it all done. So having a big pool helps.
It is very frustrating when you are on the WL - it seems insane. But this is how schools, year in and year out, have pretty much the same class profile, field good teams, and stage great performances.
Trust me, this is even crazier at the college level.
They know in 20 WL not all will be waiting for them although they might not removing themselves from the WL. If they ever needed to use the WL pool the chance of finding a student who is still waiting for them is to keep as many as possible. Even if the school is well sought but people move on and very few will keep waiting. My daughter is not even remembering her first choice anymore. She is already excited to go to her 2nd choice option and now that we are comparing these two schools we think even the 2nd choice is more of the best fit for her because we were so much into the first choice and didn’t pay attention to all the details or we overlooked them, so even if they give her the offer right now we won’t take it again. I believe there are so many more like our family out there and those schools know that.
I completely agree with this. My daughter was WL at her top 2 choices and accepted only to her third choice. Now that we look more into the school that accepted her, we couldn’t be more excited. We really think the process worked perfect for us!
I always assumed most schools all have very large WLs because there is almost no downside to the school in doing so, beyond some extra emails. There is potentially an upside in they have a big selection if they need to fill a slot, and fewer applicants are mad they were outright rejected.
I don’t think they have any incentive to make it “make sense” mathematically.
However, years ago Deerfield decided to shrink the wl. They used to put almost anyone on wl, but they decided to reject kids who are clearly not qualified. There is a memo about it.
