<p>Bluedevilmike, admission officers are human beings with a huge workload to do it in just a month. There are 22,000 (more than that) applications to read and just five readers (sometimes they get some help). If you were one of them, would you have time to investigate where each of the applicants had applied? I don’t think so.
As you know, two thirds of this country population lives in either cost and Wash U sits in the middle and that’s a big point against it. Distance makes the yield to remain unchanged and Wash U knows that, so the only thing they could do to be among the best schools is having a great school with students that are the best fit for the school. Most of the kids enrolled at Wash U were accepted to at least one top 15th school besides Wash U, and that’s a fact.</p>
<p>I suppose I should have made clear that my "you" in the last post was not "you", it was a hypothetical admissions officer.</p>
<p>They certainly do NOT investigate where others apply, although apparently FAFSA will tell them. My point is that they just guess. For example, a 1520 applying to Princeton is actually *less likely<a href="by%20quite%20a%20bit">/I</a> to get in than is a 1550. They don't bother seeing if that kid's also applied to Harvard. They put them on the waitlist and just figure it out based on how the kid responds.</p>
<p>Are you sure FAFSA will tell them or you just assume that?
Do you really think Princeton believes a student is better than another for just a tiny difference of 30 SAT points?</p>
<p>1.) At least in the past, FAFSA did indeed tell schools the other schools to which a student was applying. Whether this has been changed or not, I don't know. I know many students were hoping it would be.</p>
<p>2.) The literature documents pretty clearly that you are less likely to get in with a 1550 than a 1520. They could not, of course, prove that this was because of yield protection, but the authors seemed to think it was pretty clear.</p>
<p>How do FAFSA tells the schools? Aren’t admissions and financial aid separate departments? What about those don’t do FAFSA?</p>
<p>What kind of “literature documents” are you reading? Princeton doesn’t say anything about it. As a matter of fact, they make very clear that they look beyond standardized tests.</p>
<p>1.) Yes, that's FAFSA's defense, which I find credible. Of course, it's a quick hop from the financial aid office to the admissions office.</p>
<p>2.) I have never, ever suggested that schools ACTUALLY look to see where else students are applying. I have said that they make assumptions based on a candidate's record.</p>
<p>3.) "Literature" means scholarly journals, not official websites.</p>
<p>4.) See Figure 1:
<a href="http://post.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/hoxby/papers/revealedprefranking.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://post.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/hoxby/papers/revealedprefranking.pdf</a></p>
<p>I make two corrections:
1.) The authors are not Princeton economists. (I had thought that Thomas Espenshade was involved with this writing.)
2.) I had my SAT scores wrong, as you can see in Figure 1. A 1550 is on the again-monotonic portion of the curve. </p>
<p>5.) Obviously Princeton cares about more than SAT scores. If they only cared about SAT scores, they wouldn't be able to yield protect.</p>