I’ve seen a lot of kids admitted for the Spring instead of the Fall. They seem to have lower stats than the kids accepted for the fall but apply ED. Namely Northeastern, Tulane and USC. Isn’t this a manipulation of the stats since they don’t disclose the scores or include the stats in the actual acceptance rate? It seems like it helps the college protect the yield, lower the acceptance rate and don’t lower the stats of the accepted class. How is this allowed?
At many colleges, it’s because of the number of beds available, as kids go off to study abroad or on semester exchanges or mini-gaps. Or drop out. (I’d be more concerned about retention rates than yield.) Over a few years, they can track and predict.
It’s not about a secret back door for kids otherwise unqualified. Many colleges admit kids in RD, defer their actual start date- and do count their stats in the tally of RD admits. Some schools have first semester programs off campus for spring admits.
Where did you see these stats.?
I didn’t see specific stats but it seemed like the kids that were getting admitted were ED kids with SAT/ACT scores outside the average range.
See if you can back it up. I don’t even find a rush at Tulane or NEU to admit kids in spring. USC does have it. It isn’t even a sub-section on the CDS.
If you’re talking local kids, that’s not enough. And, as ever, without seeing their apps, we don’t get the full picture.
Agreed. I shouldn’t draw conclusions without the full picture.
For the class of 2022 there were 178 Spring Scholars and the goal for 2023 was 100, so not big numbers coming in this way.
Yes, lower stat applicants. Many are legacies or those with other strong connections.
Not Tulane-specific, but I know of a couple kids who ASKED for a spring admit after being waitlisted at their first choice schools, and they were granted it. Not sure if their stats were indeed lower of if they were waitlisted for other reasons. These were highly ranked schools, but not tippy tops.
Full pay, lower-stat kids that they want but don’t to hurt their average GPA/test scores in the Fall data. I have personally seen this at Boston University.
@socaldad2002 and you have proof of this…how?
Do schools report data and stats on Spring admits? If not, it seems like a way to increase yield, reduce admission rates and increase average stats.
In so many cases, you can read up and see why the colleges say they do spring admits.
Not guess and not auto dismiss these kids as sub quality. You don’t know.
“Do schools report data and stats on Spring admits? If not, it seems like a way to increase yield, reduce admission rates and increase average stats.”
Ding ding ding ding.
It isn’t the only reason schools do it, but one reason is to admit kids with lower stats but who get excluded from the USNWR/CDS data (which are based on the incoming freshman cohort each fall).
As the old saying goes, what gets measured gets managed. And spring admit kids, first semester abroad kids are all outside the core incoming fall data set.
Transfer kids are also outside the data set. Check out how at schools like USC and BU the size of the class grows significantly from fall frosh through graduation.
As thumper wrote, just link us a source for this.
The first reports are due roughly Oct 15.
That’s the whole point. Admission officers won’t release their data about Spring admissions since they don’t have to report them. If you ask them about it directly, they skirt the issue. If the Spring admission kids were higher stat kids, they would want to publish the numbers!
Not sure what you are looking for. The CDS form itself asks for information regarding the first-time, first-year, freshman students who enroll in the fall. All of the admission, retention, and grad rate data are measured by following this cohort throughout the rest of their time at the school. One example from the CDS website/instructions:
"Retention Rates
Report for the cohort of all full-time, first-time bachelor’s (or equivalent) degree-seeking undergraduate students who entered in Fall 2017 (or the preceding summer term). The initial cohort may be adjusted for students who departed for the following reasons: death, permanent disability, or service in the armed forces, foreign aid service of the federal government or official church missions. No other adjustments to the initial cohort should be made."
So kids who don’t enroll in the fall are off the CDS books.
As to why, I’ll let the market leader Northeastern speak on this:
“The N.U.in Program offers well-qualified applicants—to whom we were not able to offer admission in the fall—the opportunity to join our community and begin their time at Northeastern with experiential education.”
Yep…well qualified applicants! They have plenty of them.
The only reasonable inference is that they don’t want those students’ stats counting. That doesn’t mean they aren’t qualified. Sure they are. But they just aren’t their preferred applicants to make up the class that is used for rankings and tracking purposes. I don’t need to see the stats for that. They will never disclose them. But even the spring accepted students understand the rationale. Let’s not be coy.
Schools that have admission rates at or below 20% do not have to take “lower qualified” applicants. They have PLENTY of qualified applicants.
^^^ this…I have seen it happen at BU last year, great kid majoring in Elementary Education but “unhooked” and could not get better than 26 on the ACT (took it like 6 times) and 3.4 GPA, even her private counselor who packaged her well said “you are not getting in” but family was wealthy and she was admitted for Spring 2019.
I know it’s anecdotal, but it makes perfect sense. This is a full pay kid that will pay 300K+ and they liked her background for the major but didn’t want her low 25th percentile stats to adversely impact Fall admit data.