<p>"...It used to be the case that of students who were admitted to Harvard and Princeton or Harvard and Yale, seven of 10 would choose to go to Harvard," (Princeton professor) Katz says. "It may be more now. There is a tendency for the academically best to skew even more to Harvard. We just get our socks beat off in those cases."</p>
<p>" ... After all the pitches have been made, Yale manages to convince two-thirds of its admitted students to attend. What happens to the other third? The majority are lost to a handful of other colleges, most often Harvard, Princeton, MIT, and Stanford. </p>
<p>Harvard has long won the majority of students admitted to both Yale and Harvard, but Yale has traditionally won the competition for "common admits" with other colleges. Recently, however, Yale has begun to lose more Stanford common admits than it wins, particularly students from the Western states..."</p>
<p>"We offered, they declined ..."</p>
<p>According to statistics kept by the (Stanford) Office of Undergraduate Admission, (students who decline admission to Stanford) are selecting equally prestigious peers. Harvard University leads the way among the universities that students select instead of Stanford, followed by Yale, MIT and Princeton. The office provided the numbers recently after a member of the Faculty Senate asked Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Robin Mamlet during a report she gave to the senate during the Spring Quarter if her office kept such statistics.</p>
<p>For the Class of 2008, the university admitted 2,486 students; 1,665 accepted the offer of admission and arrived at the university last month. Of the 821 students who declined admission and filled out a form that indicated where they were going instead, 28 percent said Harvard, 20 percent said Yale, 13 percent said MIT and 8 percent said Princeton. All other universities that were mentioned did not represent more than 2 percent..."</p>
<p>Mamlet, who announced recently that she will be stepping down from her post next June to spend more time with her family, said the statistics were fairly common from year to year, with Harvard leading the way and only small fluctuations among the rankings of Yale, MIT and Princeton. Officials at those universities contacted by Stanford Report for similar statistics said they either dont keep track of such information or declined to share it...." </p>
<p>Yale Financial Aid director Donald Routh, interviewed in the Yale Herald:</p>
<p>" ... </p>
<p>DR: Harvard's policy changes in this area won't have any effect on us because we don't do very well against Harvard anyway. Last year, Harvard got 83 percent of students that got into both Yale and Harvard. </p>
<p>ZK: Do you have a breakdown of what kinds of backgrounds those 83 percent come from? </p>
<p>DR: You mean, do we lose the poor students or the rich students? </p>
<p>ZK: Right. Because then you would know exactly how the new policies affect that. </p>
<p>DR: Well, we know we didn't lose any poor students to Princeton, even though they took the loan obligation out of the package for students under a $40,000 income. And actually, Harvard [got] 83 percent with students believing they were going to have $1,000 extra in self-help, because [Harvard] didn't make any changes until September of this year, and then they made it retroactive. That was the strangest decision that any of us had ever heard. </p>
<p>ZK: Perhaps a large part of the 83 percent were students from middle-income families. </p>
<p>DR: I don't think it has anything to do with financial aid. ..."</p>
<p>"... Harvards yieldthe percentage of accepted students who choose to enroll at the Collegeis around 80 percent, which is 10 to 15 points higher than its closest competitors. And according to Leverett Professor of Mathematics Benedict H. Gross, (now Dean of the College) who also serves on the admissions committee, more than three-quarters of students who are accepted at Harvard and one of its top three competitors (Yale, Princeton and Stanford) come to Harvard...."</p>
<p>"more than three-quarters of students who are accepted at Harvard and one of its top three competitors (Yale, Princeton and Stanford) come to Harvard"</p>
<p>That suggests that the Harvard > Yale advantage is less than 75%. Think about it. Hint: Preference Y > S >P >;</p>
<p>In most years, either MIT or Stanford has been Harvard's toughest cross-admit competitor - probably because these three schools tend to go head to head for the top science students.</p>
<p>"either MIT or Stanford has been Harvard's toughest cross-admit competitor - probably because these three schools tend to go head to head for the top science students."</p>
<p>Agreed. This is also supported inferentially re Yale by the 2005 revision to the NBER Revealed Preference S, showing Y "winning" cross admits in the humanities, but not often enough apparently to make up for losses elsewhere, probably in sciences/math as u posit.</p>
<p>Of course that data is based on a limited survey of college applicants in 1999-2000. And there is no evidence, in any case, that Yale has ever "won" cross admits from Harvard.</p>
<p>princeton review as well as US News show year after year Harvard and Princeton as academically even, but we all know that Harvard has amazing graduate schools and shifts focus toward them, unlike Princeton who focuses on undergraduate programs. In the recent past, Yale has never been ranked number 1.......wonder why???</p>
<p>Of course that data is based on a limited survey of college applicants in 1999-2000.</p>
<p>Yale was ranked in a 3-way ties for #1 by USNews in 1999.</p>
<p>"And there is no evidence, in any case, that Yale has ever "won" cross admits from Harvard."</p>
<p>That is undisputed. The magnitude is disputed, and until one or more of the admissions offices makes an official disclosure, it will remain so.</p>
<p>So the Yale Director of Financial Aid and the Dean of Harvard College and a ranking professor at Princeton might all by lying?</p>
<p>"So the Yale Director of Financial Aid and the Dean of Harvard College and a ranking professor at Princeton might all by lying?"</p>
<p>Come, come, Byerly, u know better than to bait with the "L" word. They were simply off-the-cuff remarks.</p>
<p>Spare us. Admissions or declarations on a matter of this import in university or national publications are never "off the cuff."</p>
<p>I assume you think I am lying as well. </p>
<p>For additional historic yield rates and cross-admit numbers, I refer you to Karabell's book, "The Chosen" - about admissions practices at HYP.</p>
<p>"I assume you think I am lying as well."</p>
<p>No, I simply deny that you speak ex cathedra, as you seem to believe.</p>
<p>Byerly, your data are horribly out of date. As we all know, Yale has been more selective than Harvard for two of the past three years now. Quoting data that's many years old now does you a disservice.</p>
<p>Also, we all know that the majority of Yale applicants never apply to Harvard and the majority of Harvard applicants never apply to Yale, meaning that any statistics on preference between the two are virtually irrelevant, especially given that they have student bodies of different sizes.</p>
<p>You are forgetting that huge yield edge that has persisted over time - and in fact <em>widened</em> for the Class of 2010. The Harvard "admits per seat" edge is greater than ever. </p>
<p>The overlap remains huge despite efforts to reduce it, on Yale's part, by filling a record fraction of the class from the early pool.</p>
<p>The yield difference has very little to do with selectivity, particularly when comparing just the two schools. I mean come on, nobody would argue Yale Law is significantly more selective than Harvard Law solely on the basis that Yale Law has a 90% yield rate while Harvard has a measley 60% yield rate! Also, you've talked yourself into a trap because historically Harvard has taken a much, much greater fraction of its class through early admissions than Yale -- which indeed is part of the reason why it is completely useless to try to give any meaning to "cross admit" numbers. The applicant pools just don't overlap to any meaningful degree.</p>
<p>Just like Yale Law enjoys over Harvard Law, Yale undergrad now enjoys a significant advantage over Harvard in applications per spot and in acceptance rate, and Harvard has seen a massive drop relative to its competitors in other measures (like NMSC-sponsored National Merit Scholars) as well.</p>