<p>Yale Daily News:</p>
<p>"The total number of applications to Yale College for the Class of 2009 slightly decreased this year by about 1.2 percent, Yale Dean of Admissions Richard Shaw said.</p>
<p>This year, the admissions office received 19,430 applications, with about 150 waiting to be processed, down from the 19,675 applications processed last year. Out of this year's total number of applications, 3,926 applications were received early."</p>
<p>Well that's not too bad. I wonder what caused the minority/legacy decrease....</p>
<p>From the looks of things, the missing minorities and legacies may possibly have applied to Harvard due to the enhanced financial aid program. While the Yale apps were down 1.5%, the Harvard apps rose 15%, and African American apps to Harvard rose 28%.</p>
<p>Would you happen to know about Hispanics?</p>
<p>All I know at this time is what's in the YDN story today, if you're talking about Yale. At Harvard, I think, Hispanic apps rose more than the overall 15% number.</p>
<p>Wow I'm not happy at all. lol. Great for Yale but I wasn't going to get in anyway. And they have more female applicants than male which doesn't help...and I never knew about the Brown increase so now I'm actually kind of bummed. =/</p>
<p>Most colleges are up this year, Harvard 15%, Brown 10%, Dartmouth 6%, Duke 7%, Columbia 5%, Georgetown 6%...</p>
<p>They probably got scared of applying after seeing the massacre last year.</p>
<p>This may well be a textbook example of "stategic admissions" at work - something that happens with greater regularity than most colleges like to recognize. Yale's 13% suge last year - fueled by the switch away from binding ED and Harvard's opposite move away from open EA - caused apps to rise and the admit rate to fall. </p>
<p>This year, after many of the "strategic applicants" saw Yale's admit rate fall below Harvard's - something that had not happened in 30 years - the reverse reaction set in: "Hey", they said, "Harvard's numbers don't look so bad, relatively .. I guess we can apply there after all". The result: a 15% counter-surge for Harvard.</p>
<p>Exactly Byerly, so I expect the numbers of applicants for the two schools to flip flop for the next few years until this whole EA thing stabilizes.</p>
<p>That is entirely possible, athlonmj, although (if I may say so without being accused of showing "bias") I suspect that this year we have seen a return to something approaching the natural order of things as revealed by admit stats and trends over the last 30 years or so.</p>
<p>Let us hope (or at least I hope) that the "EA thing" never "stabilizes" - and that all elites - including both Yale and Harvard - abolish all early admissions programs. I'm not holding my breath, however.</p>
<p>Who started the "EA thing" anyway?</p>
<p>What was the admit rate for early decision - and what does that mean for the RD admit percent assuming last years' yield?</p>
<p>704 were admitted from 3,931 apps.</p>
<p>Presumably nearly 90% of the 704 will matriculate - or about 635. If the target class size is - say - 1,305, this means that between 48% and 49% of the class will have been filled via EA, and that 670 slots remain to be filled from the RD + deferred pool. If last year is any guide, maybe 56% of RD admits can be expected to matriculate, so that a rough guess might be that between 1,200 and 1,225 will be admitted RD.</p>
<p>It is possible that the number admitted RD will be a bit lower, and that some slots will be reserved for filling in from the waitlist.</p>
<p>You ask how the "EA thing" got started. Actually it was with the so-called "little Ivies" who got tired of waiting around for the "big Ivies" to eat their fill at the trough before letting the "piglets" have a nibble.</p>
<p>They started early admissions programs in the hope of picking off a few recruits who might be persuaded by the "bird in the hand" argument. After a while, the Ivies responded by offering their own EA programs. </p>
<p>In the early years, the numbers involved were nothing like they are today. This is primarily because the total number of apps-per-seat has exploded over the last 20-25 years, and applying early has emerged as a "stategic" tool used by some to get into the elite of their choice (or, increasingly, the elite where they think they may have a shot.)</p>
<p>Maybe more people were watching Legally Blonde 2 this year than were tuned into Gilmore Girls. Speaking of Harvard Law School, they should have filmed that movie at Yale Law School, since YLS' acceptance rate is ~6% and HLS' is ~11%.</p>
<p>Then again, I guess they filmed it at USC instead of HLS (and USC and Harvard look very similar), while USC/UCLA don't look much like Yale.</p>
<p>Breeze--Maybe that's why Elle Woods was able to get into Harvard: "Like it's hard?" ;)</p>
<p>So, if Yale is shooting for 670 slots, with a 56% yield, they will accept 1196 applicants. The total pool of RD+ deferred is
19430
+150 (to be processed)
-57% of 3931 early pool which was either admitted or rejected (42.9% were deferred) or 2242
= 17188</p>
<p>1196/17188 = 6.9% RD admit rate.</p>
<p>The overall admit rate will be (assuming total yield of 68%)
1305/0.68 = 1919 (total number of admittees)/(19430+150) = 9.8%?</p>
<p>hey, come on, be positive. It's 6.96%...that's</p>
<p>7%!!!</p>