<p>The stats are more than Harvard and Princeton, and Yale is a much smaller school I believe.</p>
<p>yale is about 5k, same as princeton, harvard is like 6k</p>
<p>Yale is the most selective university because the quality of undergraduate life at Yale, and the alumni success rates, are the highest of any university in the country. Just about everyone I've talked to - Yale alumni and non-Yale alumni included, who has visited the campus, stayed overnight for a few days, sat in on several classes and sampled the social life, agrees. Even David Brooks (UChicago alum) has written about this in his articles, calling Yale easily the best college in the country.</p>
<p>The trend is reflected in Yale's other schools as well, such as Yale Law School, to which almost everyone accepted chooses to enroll. Yale Law gets over 25 applicants per spot and has a 90% yield rate, versus just 14 applicants per spot and a 60% yield rate at second-place Harvard Law. Yale Music School, the Ivy League's only music conservatory, has an acceptance rate half that of Juilliard, and Yale's Art, Drama and Architecture schools are similarly dominant, considered to be by far the best such schools in the world.</p>
<p>I KNOW! It depresses me more and more each day. :(</p>
<p>Yale is a very powerful brand.</p>
<p>Wow and i thought nothing can beat Juilliard!!...or maybe Berklee </p>
<p>So I auditioned and got into this conservatory-high school as an incoming sophomore, which is more competitive so that should say something, shouldn't it? I'm a music major (pianist) whose taken music theory for two years, sight-singing, strings/orchestra (violin, viola, cello, string bass), advanced piano, music history for three semesters, and I will take chamber music and will be concert master (well, i'm a female, so that would be..mistress..?) I will take a music history comprehensive exam. My diploma will be stamped saying i was a music major at a high ranking school in NYC. My essay will explain how i got so into classical music so i know that should be from my heart. What do you think Yale Music School will say to that? </p>
<p>Please don't be rash. I don't mean to be pretentious.</p>
<p>Poster X's numbers are significantly exaggerated. I've corrected him before on this exact same set of statistics but he keeps on citing the same numbers.</p>
<p>According to the official Yale Law School website:
<a href="http://www.law.yale.edu/admissions/fastfacts.asp%5B/url%5D">http://www.law.yale.edu/admissions/fastfacts.asp</a>
J.D. acceptance rate = 6.9% (14.5 applications per spot, not 25)
J.D. yield = 77% not 90%</p>
<p>J.D. yield at Harvard Law School is 69%, not 60%.
Harvad Law School is 3 times larger than Yale and gets almost twice as many applications per year as Yale (7046 vs. 3702)</p>
<p>Harvard College's yield =80%
Yale College's yield = 69.2%</p>
<p>There will probably be even more people applying to Yale next year but it will certainly not mean that Yale is getting more selective.</p>
<p>3702 apps at Yale versus just 180 or so spots works out to more than 20 per spot, ske293.</p>
<p>No, ske293 is right. They can use the same criteria each year, and the acceptance rate would go down just because so many more people are applying. </p>
<p>I think that's what Harvard is trying to do, because they sent applications to so many people in my school, people you wouldn't expect to get them.</p>
<p>Let me clarify:</p>
<p>14.5 applications per 1 offer of admission (true acceptance rate)</p>
<p>The average J.D. class size for last 3 years available was 200.
3702/200= 18.5 applications per 1 J.D. student
It's still not 25.</p>
<p>The difference between 14.5 and 18.5, of course, comes from the fact that the yield at YLS is 77%, not 90%. Even some colleges have higher yields than this.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that the acceptance rate doesn't accurately reflect selectivity. The yield is a better measure, albeit still not perfect, and the difference between HLS and YLS is merely 8%. This is significantly less than the difference between Harvard College and Yale College. The yield difference between Harvard College and Yale College is artificially minimized by the use of early action at Yale, so one would predict the real difference between the colleges to be much larger (We won't find out exactly how much larger until Yale drops its early action but...). So if you consider that, the yield difference between the law schools is not that big in comparison to the difference between the colleges.</p>
<p>I have also mentioned elsewhere that the yield at Yale Law School used to be around 50%, some 20% below Harvard Law School, until early 1990s when the U.S. News started its Law School rankings. The U.S. News ranked Yale first by giving a heavier weight to criteria such as faculty student ratios and acceptance rates (higher, naturally, because of smaller class size) although reputational scores by judges and lawyers ranked Harvard first. Robert Clark, then Dean of HLS, called the U.S. News rankings "crazy" because until then no one would've dared to question HLS's preeminence in legal education. </p>
<p>For some reason, the U.S. News rankings completely altered the preference of applicants to top law schools, and caused the yield at YLS to soar by 25%. To me this is something of a mystery because the U.S. News rankings did not have a major impact on the ultimate choice of top applicants to colleges, business schools, and medical schools. Harvard continued to reign even if the U.S. News ranked Stanford or Princeton first in college rankings, and Stanford or Wharton first in business rankings. Are lawyers more intrinsically inclined to trust rankings of questionable validity? Do lawyers have more problems with reasoning than doctors and business executives? </p>
<p>My theory is that before people went to HLS because it was supposed to be the best even while they were turned off by its "military boot camp" reputation and harsh grading system. Once the U.S. News spread rumors that YLS was just as good or even better, then people could go to Yale (where there were no grades and classes were smaller) without feeling they were sacrificing the prestige. </p>
<p>I expect YLS will continue to enjoy its competitive advantage of being smaller and grade-free. But I also expect HLS to continue to be the dominant and most influential law school in the country (in terms of placing the largest number of graduates in the judiciary, the top law firms, and the government) because of its sheer size and impact.</p>
<p>Yale Music School will say:</p>
<p>"Come back and apply to us when you have finished your undergraduate degree. We are a grad school only."</p>
<p>And, starting this year thanks to a $100m gift, one that charges no tuition.</p>
<p>Your numbers are outdated and incorrect.</p>
<p>Veteranmom, outstanding undergraduates can study at the Yale Music School and even pursue joint B.A./M.M. degrees.</p>
<p>Actually isn't Deep Springs the most selective school? Or Curtis School of Music?</p>
<p>Curtis, Deep Springs, Juliard, Cooper Union, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, U.S. Naval Academy, and West Point are all more selective than Yale. (Thus better by PosterX's criteria)</p>
<p>Cornell and Penn get way more applications than Yale (Thus better by PosterX's criteria)</p>
<p>Yeah, Yale is great, now get over it. You don't have to prove Yale's greatness in every single statistic or event.</p>
<p>Who?</p>
<p>Face it, Yale is the most desirable school in America and has been for quite some time now. Yale produced 4 Marshall and 3 Rhodes Scholars last year - more than the rest of the Ivy League (which is over 10 times Yale's size) combined.</p>
<p>there is no connection between desirability and production of marshall/rhodes scholars. It is not proof, nor are any of your stats generally.</p>
<p>I didn't say it was proof of anything. But you can't compare Yale undergrad, which has the nation's lowest acceptance rate, with a place like Juilliard.</p>
<p>Also, by the way, the Yale School of Music, which now has free tuition, is more selective than Juilliard.</p>