<p>this is an interesting article about USC applicant base growing more out-of-state:
[In-state</a> apps in minority for first time at ?SC|Daily Trojan](<a href=“http://dailytrojan.com/2013/01/30/in-state-apps-in-minority-for-first-time-at-sc/]In-state”>In-state apps in minority for first time at ’SC - Daily Trojan)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>updates</p>
<p>Emerson confirms the NYT report of ~+10%
[New</a> class shows increase in applications | The Berkeley Beacon](<a href=“http://www.berkeleybeacon.com/news/2013/1/31/new-class-shows-increase-in-applications]New”>http://www.berkeleybeacon.com/news/2013/1/31/new-class-shows-increase-in-applications)</p>
<p>San Diego State +8.0 (74,458)
[Applications</a> Hit New High | NewsCenter | SDSU](<a href=“SDSU NewsCenter | News | SDSU”>SDSU NewsCenter | News | SDSU)</p>
<p>U Washington +15.7% (30,073)
[Admissions</a> see a rise in minority applicants | The Daily](<a href=“http://dailyuw.com/archive/2013/01/22/faculty-administration/admissions-see-rise-minority-applicants]Admissions”>http://dailyuw.com/archive/2013/01/22/faculty-administration/admissions-see-rise-minority-applicants)
comment- perhaps we can expand the California hotness theory to the West Coast. Hah, a “new species” arising…westward ho:
</p>
<p>Northern Kentucky >+30% (no app count) for familiar reasons…
[The</a> Northerner : Freshmen applications up 30 percent](<a href=“http://www.thenortherner.com/news/2013/01/31/freshmen-applications-up-30-percent/]The”>Freshmen applications up 30 percent – The Northerner)
</p>
<p>St Andrews (Scotland) +6% (14,355)
[Scottish</a> universities see a rise in applications from the rest of the UK - Education / News / The Courier](<a href=“http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/education/scottish-universities-see-a-rise-in-applications-from-the-rest-of-the-uk-1.66743]Scottish”>http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/education/scottish-universities-see-a-rise-in-applications-from-the-rest-of-the-uk-1.66743)
[BBC</a> News - University applications up by 2.8%<a href=“interesting%20articles%20with%20discussion%20about%20effect%20of%20tuition%20increases%20on%20apps%20across%20UK”>/url</a>
sounds familiar: [url=<a href=“Rise in university applications 'driven by foreign students'”>Rise in university applications 'driven by foreign students']Rise</a> in university applications ‘driven by foreign students’ - Telegraph](<a href=“http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21245882]BBC”>University applications up by 2.8% - BBC News)</p>
<p>re-sort
Skidmore +42% (8,126)
Northern Kentucky >+30% (no app count)
Clark +27.8% (5,472)
Case Western +25% (>18,000)
UChicago +20% (30,369)
Boston U +19.4% (52,532)
UCSC +16.9% (38,507)
UC Merced +16.6% (14,966)
U Washington +15.7% (30,073)
St Lawrence +14.4% (3,080)
Brandeis +14.2% (9,370)
UCSB +13.9% (62,402)
UC Riverside +13.2% (33,809)
UC Davis +13.1% (55,877)
Tufts +12% (18,339)
UC Irvine +11.3% (60,619)
Alma +11.1% (1,820)
NYU +11.2% (48,606)
UCLA +10.8% (80,472)
UCSD +10.8% (67,403)
Babson +10.3% (6,080)
Pepperdine +10% (10,443)
UC Berkeley +9.7% (67,658)
Emerson +9.7% (7,756)
Claremont McKenna ~+9% (5,461 by NYT, back-calc’d to be ~5510 from CMC)
Vanderbilt +8.9% (30,870)
Lehigh +8.7% (12,548)
Rochester +8.2% (17,146)
San Diego State +8.0 (74,458)
Colgate +6.9% (8,335)
Bowdoin +6.5% (7,150)
St Andrews +6% (14,355)
Stanford +5.9% (38,800)
Bates +5.9% (5,194)
Trinity +5.7% (7,500)
Columbia +5.1% (33,460)
Fordham +5.0% (35,229)
Wesleyan +4.2% (10,942)
U Southern Cal +3.7% (47,800)
Virginia +3.5% (~29,250)
Yale +2.8% (29,790)
Middlebury +2.6% (9,075)
William & Mary +2.5% (14,000)
Union +2.5% (5,643)
Olin +2.4% (800)
Barnard +2.3% (5,565)
Northwestern +2.2% (32,766)
Rice +1.4% (15,345)
Juliard +0.82% (2,338)
JHU +0.52% (20,608)
Duke +0.4% (31,752)
Brown +0.22% (28,733)
Villanova +0.21% (14,933)
Penn +0.00% (31,219)
Caltech -0.02% (5,536)
Scripps -0.29% (2,366)
Princeton -0.59% (26,505)
Georgetown <0%, >-1% (apps unknown)
Holy Cross -1.3% (7,079)
Hamilton -1.8% (5,017)
Elon -2.5% (9,791)
Dartmouth -2.8% (22,400)
Williams -3.3% (6,836)
Bucknell -3.6% (7,834)
Vassar -3.9% (7,600)
Amherst -8.2% (7863)
RPI -10.7% (13,600)
Boston College -26% (~25,000)</p>
<p>Mastodon, here’s the Northwestern EA data for this year and last from the NYT blog in case you haven’t already seen it:</p>
<p>EA apps 2013: 2,651; Pct change from 2012: 8.20%; Early accepts 2013: 881; Pct accepted 2013: 33.23%; Same Pct 2012: 33.00%; Tot Fr class 2013: 2,025 Pct. Class already full: 43.51%</p>
<p>Regarding comparisons, there is an inherent limitations when using the year to year numbers. This limitations comes from the variances in reporting numbers by the schools, and the subsequent decision by the “stat” person to use the reported numbers according to the reporting season or … correct the numbers when they become official, or as official as possible with the CDS obfuscators. </p>
<p>Simply stated, the number of applications disclosed in December and January are mostly “parlay” to quote the Depp movies. It gives an indication and not much more. EA numbers are, for instance, hard to verify as they are not part of the CDS surveys.</p>
<p>Applications could be a number of things from the stringent use of verifiable applications to the use of completed applications all the way to use postcards and expression of interests. Some schools use the count only applications that received the supplements or rely on the sanitized numbers from the CA. Prettty much schools report what they feel the number should be. In reality, nobody is hurt as it is a game of smoke and mirrors.</p>
<p>The same applies to admissions. Using the numbers released in April or May is iffy as schools report applications as stated above and tend to understate the admits by design or later use the wait lists extensively to cover the summer melt. </p>
<p>Again, it is what it is, but the result is that the reporting of annual growth numbers is an exercise of judgment as the choice of using bad but “consistent” numbers versus the current “rosy” numbers released against the accurate numbers released (not by all) in the Fall. </p>
<p>Fwiw, some schools are consistently disclosing numbers that will not be substantiated later. After a while, you simply expect it. </p>
<p>Caveat Emptor! Unless there is such thing as Caveat Numerator! ;)</p>
<p>xiggi- closest ‘caveat’ phrase I could find in usage is Caveat Lector…“let the reader beware.” (learned something new today!)</p>
<p>Good points, well put. Yes, in addition to all of the statistical manipulation that goes on, this snapshot view, being so short-term, doesn’t have a heck of a lot of meaning, but I for one certainly learn some things while going through this documentation process (especially about various apparent PR strategies), and its fun speculating why certain numbers are the way they are.</p>
<p>Grinnell -0.57% - 4528 from 4554 last year.</p>
<p>[Applications</a> to Grinnell Stay at Last Year?s High Level | Scarlet & Black](<a href=“http://www.thesandb.com/news/applications-to-grinnell-stay-at-last-years-high-level.html]Applications”>http://www.thesandb.com/news/applications-to-grinnell-stay-at-last-years-high-level.html)</p>
<p>The Grinnell piece had one great comment:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Only a matter of time, a catchy name surfaces a la Collegegate.</p>
<p>Well spotted, xiggi. 
</p>
<p>I am also waiting for the NYT’s response to Papa Chicken’s request.</p>
<p>Hah…JuniorMint, we may be waiting a while.</p>
<p>Some updates. 1st, I’ll refresh the list below with Grinnel (I too liked the comments, especially the one that set off the Woodward & Bernstein response.) I will also update the Early thread with Grinnel info.</p>
<p>TCU…not precisely quantified, but “down” they say (>18,000 apps) because of a new single choice EA policy implemented by competitor Baylor this year.
[Enrollment</a> application numbers down but should still finish strong | TCU 360](<a href=“http://www.tcu360.com/campus/2013/01/16847.enrollment-application-numbers-down-should-still-finish-strong]Enrollment”>http://www.tcu360.com/campus/2013/01/16847.enrollment-application-numbers-down-should-still-finish-strong)</p>
<p>Ursinus…again, no numbers, but interesting discussion about their trim-out-the-casual-applicants strategy, ala BC:
[Admissions</a> Updates | Ursinus Grizzly](<a href=“http://www.ursinusgrizzly.com/2013/01/31/admissions-updates/]Admissions”>http://www.ursinusgrizzly.com/2013/01/31/admissions-updates/)
</p>
<p>Colby +2.8% (5,390)
[Colby</a> College News | Admission Applications Break Records](<a href=“http://www.colby.edu/news_events/c/n/013113/2689145/admission-applications-break-records/]Colby”>http://www.colby.edu/news_events/c/n/013113/2689145/admission-applications-break-records/)</p>
<p>re-sort
Skidmore +42% (8,126)
Northern Kentucky >+30% (no app count)
Clark +27.8% (5,472)
Case Western +25% (>18,000)
UChicago +20% (30,369)
Boston U +19.4% (52,532)
UCSC +16.9% (38,507)
UC Merced +16.6% (14,966)
U Washington +15.7% (30,073)
St Lawrence +14.4% (3,080)
Brandeis +14.2% (9,370)
UCSB +13.9% (62,402)
UC Riverside +13.2% (33,809)
UC Davis +13.1% (55,877)
Tufts +12% (18,339)
UC Irvine +11.3% (60,619)
Alma +11.1% (1,820)
NYU +11.2% (48,606)
UCLA +10.8% (80,472)
UCSD +10.8% (67,403)
Babson +10.3% (6,080)
Pepperdine +10% (10,443)
UC Berkeley +9.7% (67,658)
Emerson +9.7% (7,756)
Claremont McKenna ~+9% (5,461 by NYT, back-calc’d to be ~5510 from CMC)
Vanderbilt +8.9% (30,870)
Lehigh +8.7% (12,548)
Rochester +8.2% (17,146)
San Diego State +8.0 (74,458)
Colgate +6.9% (8,335)
Bowdoin +6.5% (7,150)
St Andrews +6% (14,355)
Stanford +5.9% (38,800)
Bates +5.9% (5,194)
Trinity +5.7% (7,500)
Columbia +5.1% (33,460)
Fordham +5.0% (35,229)
Wesleyan +4.2% (10,942)
U Southern Cal +3.7% (47,800)
Virginia +3.5% (~29,250)
Colby +2.8% (5,390)
Yale +2.8% (29,790)
Middlebury +2.6% (9,075)
William & Mary +2.5% (14,000)
Union +2.5% (5,643)
Olin +2.4% (800)
Barnard +2.3% (5,565)
Northwestern +2.2% (32,766)
Rice +1.4% (15,345)
Juliard +0.82% (2,338)
JHU +0.52% (20,608)
Duke +0.4% (31,752)
Brown +0.22% (28,733)
Villanova +0.21% (14,933)
Penn +0.00% (31,219)
Caltech -0.02% (5,536)
Scripps -0.29% (2,366)
Grinnell -0.57% (4,528)
Princeton -0.59% (26,505)
Georgetown <0%, >-1% (apps unknown)
Holy Cross -1.3% (7,079)
Hamilton -1.8% (5,017)
Elon -2.5% (9,791)
Dartmouth -2.8% (22,400)
Williams -3.3% (6,836)
Bucknell -3.6% (7,834)
Vassar -3.9% (7,600)
Amherst -8.2% (7863)
RPI -10.7% (13,600)
Boston College -26% (~25,000) </p>
<p>Median for this group is between Trinity +5.7% and Columbia +5.1%</p>
<p>U North Carolina +4.0% (30,689)
[UNC</a> General Alumni Association :: 5,393 Hear ‘Yes’; Initial Applications Up 15 Percent |](<a href=“Carolina Alumni”>http://alumni.unc.edu/article.aspx?sid=9407)</p>
<p>re-sort
Skidmore +42% (8,126)
Northern Kentucky >+30% (no app count)
Clark +27.8% (5,472)
Case Western +25% (>18,000)
UChicago +20% (30,369)
Boston U +19.4% (52,532)
UCSC +16.9% (38,507)
UC Merced +16.6% (14,966)
U Washington +15.7% (30,073)
St Lawrence +14.4% (3,080)
Brandeis +14.2% (9,370)
UCSB +13.9% (62,402)
UC Riverside +13.2% (33,809)
UC Davis +13.1% (55,877)
Tufts +12% (18,339)
UC Irvine +11.3% (60,619)
Alma +11.1% (1,820)
NYU +11.2% (48,606)
UCLA +10.8% (80,472)
UCSD +10.8% (67,403)
Babson +10.3% (6,080)
Pepperdine +10% (10,443)
UC Berkeley +9.7% (67,658)
Emerson +9.7% (7,756)
Claremont McKenna ~+9% (5,461 by NYT, back-calc’d to be ~5510 from CMC)
Vanderbilt +8.9% (30,870)
Lehigh +8.7% (12,548)
Rochester +8.2% (17,146)
San Diego State +8.0 (74,458)
Colgate +6.9% (8,335)
Bowdoin +6.5% (7,150)
St Andrews +6% (14,355)
Stanford +5.9% (38,800)
Bates +5.9% (5,194)
Trinity +5.7% (7,500)
Columbia +5.1% (33,460)
Fordham +5.0% (35,229)
Wesleyan +4.2% (10,942)
U North Carolina +4.0% (30,689)
U Southern Cal +3.7% (47,800)
Virginia +3.5% (~29,250)
Colby +2.8% (5,390)
Yale +2.8% (29,790)
Middlebury +2.6% (9,075)
William & Mary +2.5% (14,000)
Union +2.5% (5,643)
Olin +2.4% (800)
Barnard +2.3% (5,565)
Northwestern +2.2% (32,766)
Rice +1.4% (15,345)
Juliard +0.82% (2,338)
JHU +0.52% (20,608)
Duke +0.4% (31,752)
Brown +0.22% (28,733)
Villanova +0.21% (14,933)
Penn +0.00% (31,219)
Caltech -0.02% (5,536)
Scripps -0.29% (2,366)
Grinnell -0.57% (4,528)
Princeton -0.59% (26,505)
Georgetown <0%, >-1% (apps unknown)
Holy Cross -1.3% (7,079)
Hamilton -1.8% (5,017)
Elon -2.5% (9,791)
Dartmouth -2.8% (22,400)
Williams -3.3% (6,836)
Bucknell -3.6% (7,834)
Vassar -3.9% (7,600)
Amherst -8.2% (7863)
RPI -10.7% (13,600)
Boston College -26% (~25,000)</p>
<p>More evidence for the shift in California applicants - from Forbes …</p>
<p>Money, or the lack of it in some state university systems, has triggered an increase in early decision applications from students on the west coast, particularly from California. Several private colleges noted an increase in applicants from California high school students. These are kids who would otherwise attend the first-rate colleges in the University of California system, noted one dean. But with higher tuitions and reductions in services, private colleges are looking much more attractive.</p>
<p>[Early</a> Decision Tougher Than Ever - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevecohen/2011/12/29/early-decision-tougher-than-ever/3/]Early”>http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevecohen/2011/12/29/early-decision-tougher-than-ever/3/)</p>
<p>Northwestern filled about 26% of their class via ED for the fall class of 2006. Now they are filling 43.57% of their class with ED. At 100% yield for ED, that is a significant contributor to their increase in selectivity. Note that they are just following the decisions of their peers only in the opposite direction that they thought the trend was going in 2006…</p>
<p>Also, the percentage of our enrolled freshman class this fall (the class of 2010) that were Early Decision applicants was only 26%, 3 rd -lowest of the eighteen peer institutions we benchmark ourselves against, and has never eclipsed 30%.
Based upon our review of the ways in which Early Decision has been practiced here, we have no current plans to abandon Early Decision. We believe that the benefits of Early Decisionallowing very focused students whose first-choice institution is Northwestern to gain acceptance in December, and spreading out the application reading and processing burden on our Admission staff so they can continue to make thoughtful decisionsare real and compelling. We will, of course, watch for any significant shifts in our Early Decision pool in the coming years, and we will monitor decisions made by our peers.</p>
<p>[Provost’s</a> Message on Early Decision Admissions : Office of the Provost - Northwestern University](<a href=“http://www.northwestern.edu/provost/about/announcements/earlydecision.html]Provost’s”>http://www.northwestern.edu/provost/about/announcements/earlydecision.html)</p>
<p>In reference to Stanfords vs. Harvards strategy for improving selectivity, I checked a 2008 edition of US News and found the following:</p>
<pre><code> 2008 2008 Latest
Admit Rate %Early %Early
</code></pre>
<p>Harvard 9% 45% 53.75%
Yale 9% 49% ???
Princeton 10% 49% 54%<br>
Stanford 11% 17% 41.2%</p>
<p>This suggests that Stanford has dramatically increased the percentage of the class admitted early to achieve their current selectivity level, but they are still playing catch-up relative to the most selective Ivies.</p>
<p>Those numbers make no sense, and that might explain why the conclusion seems odd. </p>
<p>I am afraid you or USNews missed the correct number. For the class of 2010, Stanford admitted about 850 students early or 19 percent of applicants. In the same year Harvard was at 21 percent rate for 813 admits. Compare that to the latest numbers for both schools.</p>
<p>Not sure how the percent of class were calculated, but they seem off. And fwiw, the selectivity was raised by a simpler crutch, namely an increase from 22,000 to 39,000 applications, and no early admissions gimmicks.</p>
<p>Bowdoin reports apps a bit lower than the NYT report…7,029 now vs 7,150 NYT, +4.7% growth instead of 6.5%.
[Applications</a> hit record high for Class of 2017 — The Bowdoin Orient](<a href=“http://bowdoinorient.com/article/7913]Applications”>Applications hit record high for Class of 2017 — The Bowdoin Orient)</p>
<p>re-sort
Skidmore +42% (8,126)
Northern Kentucky >+30% (no app count)
Clark +27.8% (5,472)
Case Western +25% (>18,000)
UChicago +20% (30,369)
Boston U +19.4% (52,532)
UCSC +16.9% (38,507)
UC Merced +16.6% (14,966)
U Washington +15.7% (30,073)
St Lawrence +14.4% (3,080)
Brandeis +14.2% (9,370)
UCSB +13.9% (62,402)
UC Riverside +13.2% (33,809)
UC Davis +13.1% (55,877)
Tufts +12% (18,339)
UC Irvine +11.3% (60,619)
Alma +11.1% (1,820)
NYU +11.2% (48,606)
UCLA +10.8% (80,472)
UCSD +10.8% (67,403)
Babson +10.3% (6,080)
Pepperdine +10% (10,443)
UC Berkeley +9.7% (67,658)
Emerson +9.7% (7,756)
Claremont McKenna ~+9% (5,461 by NYT, back-calc’d to be ~5510 from CMC)
Vanderbilt +8.9% (30,870)
Lehigh +8.7% (12,548)
Rochester +8.2% (17,146)
San Diego State +8.0 (74,458)
Colgate +6.9% (8,335)
St Andrews +6% (14,355)
Stanford +5.9% (38,800)
Bates +5.9% (5,194)
Trinity +5.7% (7,500)
Columbia +5.1% (33,460)
Fordham +5.0% (35,229)
Bowdoin +4.7% (7,029)
Wesleyan +4.2% (10,942)
U North Carolina +4.0% (30,689)
U Southern Cal +3.7% (47,800)
Virginia +3.5% (~29,250)
Colby +2.8% (5,390)
Yale +2.8% (29,790)
Middlebury +2.6% (9,075)
William & Mary +2.5% (14,000)
Union +2.5% (5,643)
Olin +2.4% (800)
Barnard +2.3% (5,565)
Northwestern +2.2% (32,766)
Rice +1.4% (15,345)
Juliard +0.82% (2,338)
JHU +0.52% (20,608)
Duke +0.4% (31,752)
Brown +0.22% (28,733)
Villanova +0.21% (14,933)
Penn +0.00% (31,219)
Caltech -0.02% (5,536)
Scripps -0.29% (2,366)
Grinnell -0.57% (4,528)
Princeton -0.59% (26,505)
Georgetown <0%, >-1% (apps unknown)
Holy Cross -1.3% (7,079)
Hamilton -1.8% (5,017)
Elon -2.5% (9,791)
Dartmouth -2.8% (22,400)
Williams -3.3% (6,836)
Bucknell -3.6% (7,834)
Vassar -3.9% (7,600)
Amherst -8.2% (7863)
RPI -10.7% (13,600)
Boston College -26% (~25,000)</p>
<p>group median back to Fordham, +5.0%</p>
<p>Northwestern’s promise several years back, when they were wary about the proliferation of ED (from Mastodon’s excerpt):</p>
<p>“We will, of course, watch for any significant shifts in our Early Decision pool in the coming years, and we will monitor decisions made by our peers.”</p>
<p>Well, nobody can complain that they haven’t been ‘monitoring.’</p>
<p>Xiggi-</p>
<p>I probably should have been more specific.</p>
<p>The US News data I included is the percentage of freshman enrolled through early plans from the 2008 printed edition of the US News rankings. The data are for the fall 2006 entering freshman class. </p>
<p>Assuming the US News data is not totally off, then in 2005/2006 Stanford admitted 17% of their class via early decision/admission and had an 11% overall acceptance rate. </p>
<p>Fast forward to today and as I interpret the NY Times data, Stanford is now admitting 41.2% of their class via EA/ED and will probably have about a 5-6% overall acceptance rate. If the data are correct, then that is a massive shift toward EA/ED and its associated improvement in yield.</p>
<p>The crutch (increasing the number of applicants) that you are referring to is actually not as simple as it appears. If the new applicants are low quality, where quality is defined as the probability that they will accept an offer of admission, then yield drops and one has to admit a higher percentage of the applicants to fill a given class size, which then neutralizes some or all of the gain in selectivity one thought they were going to get by attracting more applicants. Since money was presumably spent to attract the new applicants and more money has to be spent evaluating all these new applicants, costs go up for potentially minimal benefit. This is why industry evaluates the success of a marketing program on quality of the traffic generated as well as the quantity. In industry, generating lots of low quality traffic is a bad thing. </p>
<p>So, just looking at the increase in the number of applicants can be misleading, unless you know the quality of the new applicants. </p>
<p>A more predictable (and probably less expensive) way to increase the selectivity is to shift the mix of the class more toward EA/ED (which has a higher yield). According to the data, Stanford appears to have done this over the last several years. The Ivies have been doing this for a very long time. According to the 2008 US News data the most selective Ivies admitted between 45-49% of their class via EA/ED while Stanford only admitted 17% of their class via EA/ED. Now the most selective Ivies have increased to around 50-55% , while Stanford has increased to around 40%. So, it appears that Stanford has closed some of the gap.</p>
<p>Since selectivity is dependent on yield, I would suggest that the increase in selectivity over the last several years at Stanford is a function of both the increase in applicants and the shift in the makeup of the class more toward EA/ED applicants. The relative contribution would be a function of the respective yields. </p>
<p>As far as whether or not Stanford will catch Harvard this particular year, the answer will lie in the yield Stanford gets out of its increased RD pool vs. Harvards RD pool and the fact that Harvard appears to have shifted the mix of their class more toward EA/ED than Stanford (this particular year). Remember that both RD pools contain a number of deferrals that presumably have the same yield as the EA/ED pool , so the number of admits from that sub-pool is important as well. Of course, how the two schools choose to use the waitlist will also factor in.</p>
<p>It makes for an interesting cat and mouse game, but I am not convinced that the results have any real meaning other than who is better at playing the game, or who chooses to take the game more seriously. </p>
<p>Note that in this sort of competition, knowledge of your competitors situation is an advantage and Harvard has not announced results yet…</p>
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<p>Mastadon, as I wrote earlier, it was either a typo or a total flop. The USNews seems to specialize in misreading the data of Stanford on a regular basis! </p>
<p>Simply stated, the figure you base your analysis on is simply inaccurate. In that year, Stanford admitted 853 students in its early round. The only thing that comes close to 17 percent is the admission rate (still incorrect.) Whoever inserted that in the USNews --if that is the number they have in the book-- was oblivious to how silly such a number look. </p>
<p>Assuming for practical purposes that the entering class was 1648, the (asinine) hypothesis that Stanford filled its class with only 17 percent of EA studens means that only 280 students of that round enrolled. Then, it means that 1368 students from the REGULAR round enrolled out of 1591 admitted students. </p>
<p>The above would suggest that Stanford yield for early was below 33 percent while its RD round would have made Harvard blush at 85 percent. </p>
<p>Fwiw, for a back of the napkin proof, you can probably use a figure of 680 early enrolled students for a 80 percent yield in that round, and a total yield for Stanford of 60 percent in the RD round for its 968 RD/WL enrollment. </p>
<p>And that transfers to a percentage of … 41.26 percent of enrollment from the early round. Now, you can plug that your earlier table, and rework your conclusions! I’d be happy to discuss the rest of your post, but the basis should not one using fictitious numbers. </p>
<p>Thus far, I only answered the issue of increased selectivity and Stanford, and pointed that the number is a direct derivative of the increased application numbers, and NOT the result of drastically changing yield rates in the various rounds. </p>
<p>PS You can find the numbers Bob Morse’s apprentice should have used here:
[Stanford</a> University: Common Data Set 2006-2007](<a href=“http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/cds_2006#admission]Stanford”>http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/cds_2006#admission)</p>
<p>Xiggi-</p>
<p>I cross checked it. The US News data appears to be wrong. Based on the CDS data you sent I came up with a different number for total admits, but I came to the same conclusion. The yield for RD ends up higher than the yield for EA/ED which makes no sense. I hope no one used the US News data to decide whether or not to apply EA to Stanford (it is in the where applying early may help you most section on page 103). Luckily, we did not.</p>
<p>If it makes you feel any better, I put Stanford on a pedestal (above the Ivies) when I originally saw this data several years ago. In the current analysis, though I can see how it might have the opposite effect, so lets try to clear that up. </p>
<p>No longer trusting the US News data, I found another data source to perform the analysis. This source dates to 2002 (when Stanford was ED rather than EA), but it can provide some insights into the trends. Hopefully it is accurate.</p>
<p>[Stanford</a> University Admission Strategies 2007](<a href=“http://ivysuccess.com/stanford_2007.html]Stanford”>ivysuccess.com)</p>
<p>Students admitted to Stanford on Dec. 17, 2002 represent slightly over 24 percent of the 2,468 early applications received. Last year, 556 students out of 2,390 early applicants were admitted.
These students will make up about three-eighths of the final freshman class size, which should be slightly over 1,600. Approximately 2,300 students will be admitted by April, though around 700 of those accepted will likely choose not to enroll. </p>
<p>This article estimates Stanfords percentage of freshman enrolled through early plans at about 37%, up about 2% from the previous year, which would put the base value somewhere near the bottom of the Ivy pack and indicate that it has increased about 5% in the last decade. Dartmouth also appears to be about 37% in 2002 and based on NYT data appears to have gone up about 5% as well. Unfortunately, we cant make equivalent comparisons with the other Ivies using the data I have been able to find.</p>
<p>If we can trust the US News data for Harvard and Princeton from my earlier post (which we learned was risky), then it appears that Harvards percentage has increased more than Stanfords (about 9% vs. about 5%) over a shorter time window (7 years vs. 10 years). Princetons percentage appears to have increased about the same (5%) over the shorter window (7 years). Both Harvard and Princeton were also starting from a higher base values (45% for Harvard and 49% for Princeton). </p>
<p>Hopefully, this provides a better basis for discussion.</p>
<p>@Mastadon - I think there are more errors in your data source. IIRC, neither Harvard nor Princeton had any early admissions program in 2008.</p>