Completely agree and nodded throughout your post! I’m so puzzled why schools aren’t required to report their yield rate in only the EA and RD rounds. Allowing schools to inflate their yield rates from ED makes no sense since ED is supposedly “binding” and most students should be committing. The way the yield rate is currently used only encourages schools to offer even more spots thru ED–a luxury most can’t afford.
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Hi, marlowe1!
Saw you in that other thread that just got locked, looks like we both took a hiatus. Hope all is well!
…whereas Caltech and MIT (both of which practice non-restrictive EA) are infamous for their jocks and rich kids that are just out to party 
That is what happened to our elder when he got deferred from EA three years ago: a non-so-gentle suggestion to kiss the ring and switch to ED2.
Lucky for him, he already had EA admissions from MIT and Caltech, so he withdrew his application instead so as not to give UC the satisfaction of rejecting him in RD.
His friend only applied EA to UC, and having refused to switch to ED2 despite my warnings to his parents received a completely predictable rejection, and ended up at a T20 that wasn’t one of his top choices. Use your EA applications wisely.
I got quite a bit of flack from marlowe1 back then for insinuating that UC is not entirely above water with their draconian (err… I mean, peculiar) EDI/EA/EDII/RD admission procedures - but you know what? It’s worth having your kids applying EA to UC just to make marlowe1’s acquaintance! (marlowe1, I am serious!) Well, one of your kids. Our younger won’t be applying there.
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My old friend the Vulcan, back and as full of beans as ever.
I enjoyed your posts in that other thread, marlowe1.
Before it got locked, I meant to tell you that one doesn’t have to wait 'till college to read Shakespeare’s sonnets. Our boys were reading them in high school, both in English and in their mother tongue translation (reputed to be better than the original:)
Apropos of nothing, I just gonna leave this here in case anyone finds it useful . . .
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Schools that really aren’t worried about their yield rates (e.g. Caltech, 44% last I checked) do EA.
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Caltech now has restricted EA, where applicants are not supposed to apply ED anywhere else or EA to other private schools. “Other private schools” probably means MIT as the main reason for going to this policy.
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Oh wow! That is new.
Their admissions folks were complaining jokingly how they tend to lose some good admits to MIT, but I always admired Caltech’s not giving a damn about it.
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Note that Caltech’s REA policy likely benefits MIT as well, since splitting the EA pools that formerly contained those who applied EA to both into pools that apply (R)EA to one or the other means that yield prediction is likely better at both schools.
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Signaling and that’s how how monopolies and duopolies operate. Not good for the applicants for sure.
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MIT seems to have done ok with yield prediction. Most years they don’t admit anyone off the waitlist, and when they rarely do, it’s but a few people.
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Caltech shifted to REA this year.
I wonder how their relative size might factor in. As well as Caltech’s current testing policy.
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“Test-Free Through 2025”. Whoo boy.
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Yes, MIT’s yield for class of 2026 was approximately 1136/1337 = 85%. As Nemesis touched on, one contributing factor to the large difference in yield between MIT and Caltech (in previous years before REA) is the difference in class size. For example, suppose 100 students are admitted EA to both MIT and Caltech. Half of this group chooses to attend Caltech, and half choosees to attend MIT. 50 students choosing another college is a much larger portion of Caltech’s 270 person class than MIT’s 1136 person class, so Caltech takes the bigger yield hit, in spite of an equal portion of cross admits choosing the 2 colleges.
Considering the magnitude of the difference in yield between Caltech and MIT, I expect there are other important differences as well, including in things like which specific students are admitted. Along the same lines, Caltech being test blind is also likely to improve yield.
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Caltech admissions probably gets close to no use out of SAT/ACT, since its applicant pool is probably highly self selected, and admissions wants to see indicators of academic strength well beyond the range that SAT/ACT can give (probably a large percentage of those scoring at the top end of SAT/ACT would have great difficulty in Caltech’s core / general education requirements).
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MIT’s pool is probably not that different from Caltech’s - yet they insist they need the tests. (Good for them!)
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Yeah, MIT students are probably almost as smart as Cal Tech students 
.
Seriously, they both have some serious brain power. Anyone who is able to attend and graduate from either institution has really accomplished something great!
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MIT is significantly larger than Caltech, and the minimum rigor in MIT course work is not as high as in Caltech course work, so a much greater portion of the top end (and perhaps not so top end) SAT/ACT scorers can handle MIT course work. MIT probably also gets an applicant pool that is somewhat less self-selected for academic strength compared to the Caltech applicant pool.
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