Yale May Expand Enrollment as Levin Sees Ivy League Competition

Parents Forum
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<p>Interesting article in Bloomberg reports that discussions are underway at Yale University to decide whether or not it would be a good move to increase undergraduate enrollment by as much as 15 percent - a move that would accommodate as many as 200 more students in each year's freshman class:</p>

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[quote]
<code>If they take more students, the schools who are going to lose in this domino effect are the ones directly below them in the Top 10,'' said Maguire, formerly dean of admissions at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.</code>They will take some students from Penn and Columbia, and Penn and Columbia will take students from BC and Holy Cross.''</p>

<p><code>The principal reason for moving up is that we are turning down so many great kids,'' Levin said.</code>The applicant pool is so much larger, and selectivity is so much greater.''...</p>

<p>The risk for Yale is that with a bigger community, the school might not feel right to some students, said Katherine Cohen, the chief executive officer of IvyWise, a New York consultant on admissions.</p>

<p><code>It is so individual when students are looking at communities,'' Cohen said in a telephone interview.</code>Yale might be too big for them, so they look at an Amherst College or Williams College.''

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<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aH1kNjCfOzVE%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aH1kNjCfOzVE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Good for them. I heard a year ago from my Pton interviewer that Pton was planning on expanding too is that true?</p>

<p>Oh and I doubt an increase in 15% would create a big enough difference that kids would start preferring other schools...</p>

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<p><a href="http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pwb/02/0211/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pwb/02/0211/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p><code>It is so individual when students are looking at communities,'' Cohen said in a telephone interview.</code>`Yale might be too big for them, so they look at an Amherst College or Williams College.''</p>

<p>Yeah, and I've got a bridge I'd like to sell her.</p>

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<p>I agree. Making Yale undergrad enrollment 15% bigger would still leave it slightly smaller than Harvard.</p>

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<p>Yale has been talking about expanding enrollment since the 70s. At one point there were three additional residential colleges planned, but those plans were dropped. They have been talking about two new residential colleges for a couple of years, which would correspond to increasing enrollment by 200-250 kids per class. It's hard to see any downside to it. Yale clearly has the resources, its admission rate is ridiculously low and no one is suggesting that it doesn't turn away top-notch applicants, and having 6,000 rather than 5,200 undergraduates would not fundamentally alter its character.</p>

<p>I thought Princeton was already in the process of increasing its class size from 1,100 to more like 1,300. Chicago, too, has increased its class size from 1,000 to 1,250 over the past 4-5 years.</p>

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<p>Some current enrollment figures:</p>

<p>Harvard: 6,715.
Yale: 5,426
Princeton: 4.635
University of Chicago: 4,391
Williams: 2,124
Amherst College: 1,648.</p>

<p>As universities try to beef up certain disciplines and programs, they need to reassure current constituencies that their student numbers will not shrink.</p>

<p>Harvard is embarking on a huge extension in Allston focusing mainly on sciences and engineering. This expansion raised alarms among faculty in existing disciplines (hence so much of the rancor toward Larry Summers) who had to be persuaded that their disciplines would not suffer either in terms of resources or number of students. Ergo, more students. The expansion will involve building new dorms to accommodate the increased number of students flocking to the new programs.<br>
Yale, too, has been strengthening its science programs, and the additional students may be a result of this policy.</p>

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<p>Brown tried something like this about 15 years ago. It was a DISASTER, so it reverted to its former smaller size.</p>

<p>One of the issues--which the Princeton faculty who opposed its expansion argued--is that not all majors are created equally. While the vast majority of Yale classes are small, the big huge lectures tend to be in certain majors. Unless you go out and make a major push for more faculty in those fields, you're going to end up with even more large classes in those fields. (English concentrators lead the charge to revert at Brown. )</p>

<p>In other words, a 15% increase in enrollment is unlikely to be evenly distributed across all majors. You may well end up with a 30% increase in the # of English, poli sci, biology, history and economics majors. And I doubt very much that those departments will get a 30% increase in faculty. Fields like classics, in which Yale excels, are unlikely to increase the number of students majoring in them by 15% if the overall enrollment of Yale increases by 15% because fewer and fewer students are graduating from high school with the necessary preparation in that field. </p>

<p>And, Yale already has some selective programs and majors. Every year, there are kids who wish they could change their minds and go to a different college when they find out they did NOT get accepted into the Directed Studies Program for freshman year, for example. There are kids who don't get into architecture or EP&E or Grand Strategy or other limited enrollment programs who feel as if they got a raw deal. Is Yale going to enlarge those programs--or just make them more selective? In addition, there are TONS of students who are disappointed when they don't get into limited enrollment seminars. </p>

<p>A LOT of kids at Yale end up being annexed now. It could use another residential college just to create a situation in which nobody gets annexed. </p>

<p>And, remember we are at the height of the "boomlet." The # of kids entering college will be dropping in a few years.</p>

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In other words, a 15% increase in enrollment is unlikely to be evenly distributed across all majors. You may well end up with a 30% increase in the # of English, poli sci, biology, history and economics majors. And I doubt very much that those departments will get a 30% increase in faculty.

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<p>Well you said it yourself just get more faculty in those disciplines. If the number of students entering the classics department don't rise by 15% then just don't increase their faculty by 15% instead hire more faculty in the areas that need them. Sure it may be a bit hard and might cause a few problems at first but if the phase it out properly it shouldn't be that hard.</p>

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<p>They need to do this because, even as the rate of admissions is declining, selectivity is actually declining as well - it is becoming ever less and less likely that they are able to get precisely those students who would benefit the most from the Yale education. </p>

<p>Jonri got it exactly right.</p>

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<p>
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And, remember we are at the height of the "boomlet." The # of kids entering college will be dropping in a few years.

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<p>I keep seeing this being mentioned in quite a few posts. Can you be more specific, how are the numbers going to change? When ?</p>

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<p>Yale currently gets about 10 or 11 applications for every slot in its freshman class. There is going have to be a catastrophic drop in the number kids entering college before the likes of Yale will feel any pinch, even with a 15% expansion.</p>

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<p>
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And, remember we are at the height of the "boomlet." The # of kids entering college will be dropping in a few years.

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<p>US trends can always be offset with international students. That even applies to depopulated majors; if it wanted to, Yale could find classicists or assyriologists all over the world just as it might for graduate school.</p>

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<p>for national enrollment projections:</p>

<p><a href="http://nces.ed.gov/programs/projections/tables/table_24.asp?referrer=report%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://nces.ed.gov/programs/projections/tables/table_24.asp?referrer=report&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Besides the role of international students filling up application pools, as long as there continues to be a "flight to quality" (with domestic students who formerly applied only to state flagship universities applying to top national universities), a college like Yale or a Yale-peer college can expect a large, and possibly growing, number of applicants. I do NOT expect admission at Yale or similar colleges to be significantly easier for my daughter (class of 2021) than for my oldest son (class of 2010).</p>

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<p>I agree with tokenadult. I wouldn't be surprised if the applicant pool for HYPSM grew even when national enrollment fell.</p>

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<p>Class of 2021 admissions may not be easier but they will be easier to predict as the process becomes ever more rationalized, with mountains of data available in usable form. The daughter will be able to know, with some certainty, what she needs to do to get into Yale, and where she stands in the pool. There may even be a matching system, rolling admission, auctions, or other innovations by that time.</p>

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<p>Levin is not talking about increasing the size of the faculty by 15%. His plan is to increase the size of the student body by 15%. To do that, he wants to build 2 new colleges. Otherwise, he plans on using the same resources, including faculty resources, to teach the larger number of students. That larger # of students is not going to be distributed evenly across disciplines. In the most popular fields, class size will probably increase by about 30% and it is ALREADY too big.</p>

<p>Yes, Yale could go out and recurit classics majors and take more international students.But that doesn't solve what Levin perceives as the PROBLEM--which is that Yale turns down tons of the best and brightest American kids who want to major in the fields which are Yale's traditional strengths--which lie in the biological sciences, humanities and social sciences, especially biology, history and English. This is a problem in part because a growing # of the rejected applicants in these fields are legacies and parents who were previously loyal, $ donating alums are FURIOUS when their kids get rejected. Recruiting classics majors from Uzbekistan isn't going to solve Levin's PR problem with alums.</p>

<p>But if you cave into these demands, you will end up with a large number of unhappy students who wonder why they are paying $45,000 a year to sit in large lecture classes while classmates paying the same (or less) are in the Directed Studies Program and numerous seminars "capped" at 20 students or were able to major in architechture. (Do away with these programs, and many students and parents will conclude that junior should go to state U for a lot less $.) </p>

<p>You will also have some very unhappy faculty who routinely fullfill their required undergraduate teaching responsibilities by teaching those seminars who must now be prodded to turn some of those seminars into lectures. And while faculty who teach seminars usually grade all student work themselves--and therefore are able to write good letters of rec for the students in them--when they turn into lectures, the discussion sections will be lead by TAs who also do much of the grading. That makes it a lot harder for a student to get to know a prof well. And, in my not so humble opinion, one of the great strengths of Yale is that must students now have the opportunity to take at least several seminars in which they DO get to know profs well--without having to be that 1 in 10 kid in a large lecture course who goes to office hours just to get to know the prof. </p>

<p>In other words, more kids will have the chance to share a worse experience at Yale. </p>

<p>That extends beyond the classroom, BTW. There are several student organizations at Yale--and this is not unique to Yale--which cap the number of students who can participate. I'm not talking secret socities; I'm talking regular run of the mill student activities. For example, the Yale Student Orchestra is extremely competitive. Increase the # of students in each class by 250, and the odds of any particular kid getting into that orchestra decrease. And while there are MANY other venues to play music at Yale, still, not making the orchestra can be a major disappointment. As it is, there have been kids who were all-state musicians who failed to make it. And that's just one example. </p>

<p>Levin's proposal will fundamentally change the character of Yale. I think it would be a HUGE mistake.</p>

<p>It isn't all about getting in--a lot of it is about the experience you will have once you are there. I think Brown's experience illustrates this. When Brown did it, the satisfaction ratngs of graduating students plummeted. At Brown, alumni reunions take place graduation weekend. At one such event a lot of years ago now, an angry graduating senior confronted the prez saying that she had come to Brown for its outstanding teaching...and found herself as an English concentrator being frozen out of every seminar she applied to. That will be what happens at Yale if Levin has his way.</p>

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<p>My limited experience of Yale suggests that much of what Jonri describes is already happening. On the whole, it might exacerbate the situation.</p>

<p>BUT (and here's where I might differ), increasing the size of the student body allows the admissions office more flexibility in finding students who will help support small departments that might be begging for students, who might not be admitted otherwise. That would be a good thing - it would be a way that Yale becomes MORE selective - more likely to end up with the students they really want - even if the rate of admissions goes up (which it likely won't). </p>

<p>The PR problems with alums aren't going to go away, and are made worse by the fact that this is the first time in HYP history that there are substantial numbers of legacies by virtue of their mothers and URMs being the alums. Legacies were fine as long as they were white men; it's now time to de-emphasize them ;).</p>

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<p>A big decision that goes hand in hand with expanding the size of the school is also HOW to expand the student body. We may look back at the discussions related to the planned expansion at Amherst and the conflict caused by allocating a large portion of the "expansion" to minorities and needy students. </p>

<p>Not as easy as it sounds ... and costly too!</p>