<p>That was exactly my thought when I saw the original posting of this thread. But, I would go a step further than my friend xiggi: yield is absolutely worthless to applicants. It’s a zero-sum game: they get in, or they don’t. ‘There is no there there.’</p>
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<p>Definitely, true, AND the fact that the state publics in the NE do not receive much support are not highly ranked. Thus, the attitude for many in (the massive) NE population, it’s a private college or bust. In contrast, residents of California are more than happy to save $25k a year and attend Cal or UCLA (not to mention better weather and closer to home – a huge factor even for those in the NE which shun Stanford for geographical reasons). Ditto residents of Illinois, Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin, and the like.</p>
<p>I disagree. A lot of public flagships have yields significantly higher than nominally more “prestigious” private institutions. Here’s a list of 30 public universities with yields higher than Duke, Vanderbilt, Chicago, Caltech, Northwestern, Wash U, Rice, Emory, and Carnegie-Mellon:</p>
<p>And there are dozens more in the 30-to-40% range, with yields similar to the Caltechs and Chicagos. In fact, I count at least 60 public flagships or “second flagships” with yields higher than Carnegie Mellon. Since there are only 50 states, these can’t all be “outliers.”</p>
<p>Again, my point is that it’s market segmentation that accounts for this phenomenon. By and large, these schools are just not competing for the same students as the elite privates. Every state flagship is a major player in its own local market. In many states, the state flagship is the dominant player, with relatively little competition from out-of-state schools or in-state public or private rivals. It is simply not true that every kid in the country is trying to get into HYPSM but will settle for Duke, Chicago, Vanderbilt et al. The vast majority aren’t—even if they have the paper qualifications to compete at that level. Yield may tell us something about the relative positions of a couple of dozen elite privates—a tiny fraction of the overall educational market. Beyond that, it doesn’t have much to do with prestige.</p>
<p>“Lastly, Stanford publishes analyses of their yield (presenting where and how admitted students choose a different school) and many of the yield “losing” students attend schools that are ranked equally or VERY slightly higher ranked than Stanford.”</p>
<p>That’s not Prof’s point at all. He was addressing the issue of Stanford taking kids that would NOT have gained admissions to HPY. The argument is that since Stanford admits applicants, on average, with weaker, although only slightly, academic records than HPY, these students are more likely to accept Stanford’s offer. This is because in all likelihood these academically weaker students have less choices among the “super elites”. In essence, Prof was not discussing cross admits. Stanford simply has a different admissions policy than HPY that leads to a higher yield (more athletes, etc.)</p>
<p>How much of the slightly weaker average academic records at Stanford can be explained by the need to accept a higher level of athlete, which therefore causes the average to fall? Is it really easier for the non-athlete, top 1% of hs class, 1500 SAT applicant to get into Stanford than Yale or Princeton? I tend to doubt it, although to me geography may have something to do with it.</p>
<p>Hallowarts, you missed the first part of my post that responded to the “point” made by Prof101. </p>
<p>Here it is again:</p>
<p>**Alas, your theory does not apply to Stanford! **</p>
<p>For starters, Stanford does NOT admit a lot of LOW scoring students who don’t have a place to go. A quick look at their admission rates suffice to ascertain the selectivity of Stanford, especially for a school that maintains a SCEA choice. Secondly, Stanford maintains one of the most competitive athletic programs in the nation and thus admits a small number of athletes who might have lower SAT scores, but nonetheless have outstanding qualifications.</p>
<p>I would agree with that point on balance – but I think that is precisely why hawkette separated privates and publics – its mixing apples and oranges.</p>
<p>bclintonk: Thanks for providing those data. It really shows that yield doesn’t show how good a school is compared to other schools.</p>
<p>molliebatmit: Thanks for the edit. I’m glad that CC does not like mean people. =)</p>
<p>ilovebagels:
“While this is true in a de jure, anyone can tell you the Ivy League is de facto more than simply a sports conference. Unless there’s a Big-10 or Pac-10 equivalent of IvyGateBlog of which I’ve hitherto been unaware, or a Big-10 Presidents Council, or a student-formed “Pac-10 Council” with its own plethora of entirely student-run initiatives promoting interaction between the 8 schools…etc. Aside from various inter-college consortia (Claremont, etc), I can think of no such group that has such extensive non-athletic relations and interests between the schools.”</p>
<p>Well, what I meant was…what IF, ivy league doesn’t exist. I can assure you that Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, UPenn, and Cornell would be just like Duke, UChicago, JHU, Northwestern, and WashU. They would be peer institutions.
You may not agree with this, but I’m pretty sure that HYP’s prestige does change the way people view the rest of the ivies.
Furthermore, as you can see in CC, there are so many kids who want to go to those ivy league schools simply because they are ivy league. Not because they are better than non ivies.
Finally, I’ve seen the revealed preference thingy. But I have 3 possible reasons for why UPenn won. First is simply because UPenn is and Ivy and Duke isn’t. Second, Duke is in the south (many people don’t like the south) and Penn is in NE. Third, because Wharton is the BEST business school in the US…it’s so good, even the students don’t simply say that they go to UPenn. They usually say they go to Wharton.</p>
<p>1) How can you PROVE that it’s due to the fact that Penn is an Ivy? Oh yeah, you can’t.
2) As I said before, even if it IS because Penn is an Ivy, really, it’s a moot point – who CARES why the choice is made if this choice is made repeatedly and in larger numbers in Penn’s favor? Even if it is as superficial as the school’s colors or location or mascot – if it is consistently made in one school’s favor how can this simple reality be ignored?</p>
<p>Let’s step out of hypothetical world and keep the discussion in the real one.</p>
<p>Penn has Tufts Syndrome. It is a dishonest institution that manipulates USNews numbers to work in its favor.</p>
<p>My friend who attend Harvard got waitlisted by Penn CAS when he had a 2390 SAT, 4.0 GPA, was the president of the student body, captain of the varsity lax and cross country teams, won a national essay competition, etc. I don’t care what any of you say but Penn is simply not good enough of an institution to reject this sort of candidate. It’s no HYP. It clearly rejected my friend because they knew he would get into a better school and not go there.</p>
<p>Penn had a high yield for three reasons:</p>
<p>1) locks in an absurd number of applicants ED
2) almost everyone who gets into Wharton, UPenn’s biggest asset, accepts the offer
3) the College of Arts and Sciences has Tufts Syndrome and uses a wide variety of “interest” litmus tests to lock in applicants they know will accept the offer.</p>
<p>Oh Penn, everyone seen through your facade.</p>
<p>1) 48% is hardly “absurdly high” when its peers Brown and Columbia accept ~43-44%</p>
<p>2) Wharton has the advantage of being peerless. And every Penn student can take classes in it, work with its professors, network within it, etc–and don’t think this isn’t an advantage, because it certainly is. I would never want to do business as an undergraduate, but I have no problem with saying one of the reasons I wanted to got o Penn for my international relations degree is because of the breadth of unique (among the Ivies) academic and professional opportunities Wharton provides the Penn community at large.</p>
<p>Also, in terms of acceptance rate, revenue, and even sheer size, Penn’s biggest asset is Penn Med, not Wharton.</p>
<p>3) If Penn has Tufts syndrome, then so does Duke. The difference is that Penn is simply better at it. If anything, Duke’s status as being the geographically peerless “Harvard of the South” should give it an edge in yield in the same way Northeast schools enjoy preference by Northeast students.</p>
<p>You are going to base your entire theory about Penn’s admissions process on one anectodal case? Talk about an underwhelming sample size. There could be an endless number of reasons that dreamboat friend of yours didn’t get into Penn. Perhaps he wrote down H or Y or P on his application (or worse wrote down Penn State) – who knows? But that, THAT is your basis for condemning Penn? </p>
<p>Penn has a severe case of Tufts Syndrome. The Penn application has one of the longest supplements ever. I think only Stanford has a harder application to complete. The “Why Penn” essay is a critical element of the admissions process there whereas the “Why Duke” essay is optional for applicants to complete. In addition, Penn has a stupid autobiography essay that is optional to complete as well.</p>
<p>It’s absurdly clear that Penn values those individuals who spend an inordinate amount of time on the application and they handpick these individuals out by accepting them. It’s not like the kids who are getting into Penn are getting accepted at HYP or even Duke, Columbia, etc. and turning those schools down to go to the Penn College of Arts and Sciences. They are usually candidates who have Penn CAS as a slight reach and display an inordinate amount of passion for the school.</p>
<p>Duke, on the other hand, accepts almost everyone that’s qualified. I didn’t even write the “Why Duke” essay and still got in. I mean geez, if you’re applying to a school, then my guess is you are interested in it. The Penn folks simply use all these superfluous essays to “screen” candidates who are more likely to accept their admissions offer.</p>
<p>It unfairly boosts Penn’s ranking in USNews and allows kids in Penn CAS to brag about how 2/3 of accepted Penn students choose the school over other places like Duke and Columbia when that is not the case.</p>
<p>My friend is not the only example of an overachiever who got rejected. I know many others who got 2300+ on the SAT and were rejected. You guys can whine to me about how scores aren’t everything, but Penn isn’t strong enough of an instituion sans Wharton to reject the top applicants in the country without reasonable cause.</p>
<p>It seems that integrity is dead in the Ivy League admissions offices in addition to fraudulent corporate executive boards on Wall Street.</p>
<p>“Also, in terms of acceptance rate, revenue, and even sheer size, Penn’s biggest asset is Penn Med, not Wharton.”</p>
<p>True, but there is no medical school for undergrad and since the yield is for undergrad…so I think in this case, Wharton is the one that has been attracting students to come to UPenn.
I know maybe some of you think that the reason behind people’s choice is not important in this discussion. But since we are comparing yields. We should take into consideration the reasons why one school’s yield is higher than the other as prestige is not the only factor that affects yield.</p>
<p>I’m sorry, I didn’t know you worked for Penn Admissions. I stand corrected then.</p>
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Hardly. The location in a major American city, while still maintaining a campus and social life, the freedom to take classes in all 4 undergrad schools (most peer schools don’t even have that many, let alone open them up to you), and even many of their grad schools, there are many things that draw students to all 4 of Penn’s schools.</p>
<p>This inevitably begs the question, what has been attracting students to go to Duke all this time? What makes Duke special?</p>
<p>I really don’t understand why Penn always trots out this ‘perk’ to studying in West Philly. Most peer undergraduate schools that I know of with separate undergraduate colleges (e.g. Northwestern, Georgetown, Duke, Cornell, Columbia, UVa, Michigan, etc.) offer a similar ease in enrolling in courses across the entire university. At Cornell, the only college I didn’t take a course in was Hotel, but that was just par for the course and nobody at Cornell feels a need to constantly remind people of this fact. Perhaps it is just a way to let people know that they can take courses in Wharton, I don’t know.</p>
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<p>Actually, Brown admitted 35 percent of its class early. Cornell admitted 35 percent as well. Columbia admitted 43 percent. </p>
<p>It is Penn that is higher than most of its peers in the enrolling early decision students. And, yes, when a school is enrolling close to 50 percent of its class out of applicants that represent a fraction of the total interested students, I might call that absurd.</p>
<p>Ok, I know u listed lots of reasons for why Penn is special probably bec u go to Penn. I dont go to Duke…so I think the weather, basketball, beautiful campus, and prestige.
And before I offend any Penn student, I just wanna clarify that I am not bashing Penn (not sure if you think I am). I chose Penn bec it is the most closely ranked ivy to Duke.</p>
<p>xiggi, I still think that Stanford’s low scores in comparison with HYP help it yield. Of course, the sure way to find out is for Stanford to raise their scores on par with HYP.</p>
<p>Seven years ago, Laissez-Faire did a study that is listed on CC showing Princeton, Stanford, Yale all with the exact same 25-75% SAT range that showed Princeton with a 69% yield, Stanford with a 64% yield and Yale with a 62% yield, which to me completely refutes the theory above of why Stanford would have a better yield. Looking at this study, it is also amazing how much acceptance rates have gone down and SAT avgs have gone up for the top 100 schools in the country in the last seven years.</p>