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<p>US News may weight selectivity as only 1.5%, but in the minds of applicants, selectivity correlates with quality and prestige and exclusivity and bragging rights and so constitutes about 99% of how applicants actually “weight” choices. Here is where US News doesn’t lead opinion; rather, opinion is utterly indifferent to how US News weights selectivity, as applicants KNOW that selectivity says far more about a college than anything US News does.</p>
<p>Kelly nailed it. In industry we call it aspirational marketing. You limit the supply to increase the perceived value. Selectivity is the indicator of supply. Almost all the metrics in US News are correlated with perceived value, so that is why it is so important - despite the small direct contribution to the formulae. When people talk about potentially diluting the Harvard Brand you are in the world of aspirational marketing and Harvard Degree = Gucci Handbag.</p>
<p>A point of clarification</p>
<p>If one is looking for a job in industry, one should recognize that aspirational marketing is a concept from consumer marketing, not industrial marketing. When marketing to industry actual value is much more important than perceived value. The college degree is at bottom of the resume - after job experience, so choose a college based on it’s ability to improve your job performance, not how fashionable the name looks.</p>
<p>I think many here are trying to make this “syndrome” more sinister than it likely is, at least for the most part. “Yield” numbers are important for two reasons (to the college). the LESS important reason is the rankings. As was said, a small improvement in the yield numbers has a very small impact on rankings, and less on the student’s decision. What I think is the real reason for turning down “overqualified” applicants is that they want to statistically try to fill their school with as close to the exact numbers as possible who accept and come there as they projected in planning dorms, professors for various subjects, important EC stuff (like a debate school), future grad schools kids vs. straight to work, grad school kids for their own grad school, potential doctors, lawyers, senators, whatever. </p>
<p>We visited Case Western this year and found out the current freshman class is 100’s more than they normally have, so they have a big class to deal with - problems for their typical dorm plans, classes, etc. This causes a problem until that class is out in 4 years. No school wants that. So, one way to statistically get closer to your expected yield is to make sure your school is high on that student’s list, preferably their “dream” school. They determine this through interest, effort in the essay (we all know that forth or fifth school-specific essay our kids write isn’t as good as the first one), interview, and, I think to a lesser degree, stats. If a kid has great stats and is a high-achieving math student and wants is looking for an advanced math degree - maybe Tufts thinks… hmmm… lets look to see if he/she has “MIT” written all over their application and interview. Maybe that kid gets waitlisted for all the reasons above.</p>
<p>A lot of people here don’t know the law of large numbers. </p>
<p>It is almost as easy to predict the number of students who will matriculate from the top segment of the applicant pool as the middle segment for larger schools.</p>
<p>Cabengineer, I don’t think it is good policy to WL the top candidates to a college just as a strategy. I do believe demonstrated interest, possibly interviews, essays,recommendations, and other things can tank any number of students whose stats and academic profile looks great, But then they are not the top candidates anymore. But pick out a number of kids that one thinks will get accepted to a more selective schools, and WL them solely to jack up the school yield which then can raise the school rankings is foolish. It can lose the school some of its best students, and give the school a bad rep. It works only for a short time with the rankings, maybe just once with GCs, parents, college consultatnts and computer programs that can catch this sort of thing. IMO, doing that is playing games and crossies the line.</p>
<p>Schools absolutely take a lot of factors into account that are not visible about a student and, yes, they should. Many schools that do take demonstrated interest heavily into account, will tell you right out that they do.</p>
<p>If you’ve ever seen a mass of applications, as rundmc notes, not all super bright kids put the same effort into each of their apps. The reviewers aren’t just looking for highest stats or how your answers present you as an individual, but as an individual right for that school, that major, the school’s expectations, etc. Nothing says hs achievement equates to presenting a great app for that college. And, when the kids go off-track a bit (or more,) it’s easy to say, let’s look at the next kid.</p>
<p>Cpt, I agree with with your post, and I think I should have been more clear when I posted my question to you. I don’t think that schools should waitlist students just for the sake of rankings as part of a strategy. I do think that schools should WL otherwise qualified students as part of their process to get the kind of student body that they are looking for. Admission offices are looking for a certain cross section within the freshman class, with a class consisting of a certain number of men/women, athletes, musicians, ethnic diversity, geographic diversity, intended major, etc…and also interest. A student with a 3.6/1950 from Louisiana who wants to major in Chemical Engineering,plays the tuba, has volunteered to rebuild housing after Katrina, and came for a visit and interview might be more qualifed than the student who is right down the road from a school in New England with a 3.9/2150 with mediocre ECs who want to major in Business and never bothered to visit the campus.</p>
<p>I’ve spoken to an admissions officer before and he said that based on his experience, it is very unlikely that “overqualified” applicants are rejected for protecting a college’s reputation.</p>
<p>We noted this year that several schools (in fact, most) on the common app supplement asked what other schools were being applied to. However, it specifically noted that this was for research purpose and had nothing to do with candidate selection. We chose to believe the schools.</p>
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<p>That’s how I understood demonstrated interest for the purposes of this thread…</p>
<p>How does one demonstrate interest without sounding <em>too</em> obsessive?</p>