<p>For what it's worth, USNews's dropped yield as a metric in its rankings in 2003, so that's not a factor. </p>
<p>I know that schools like to use the waitlist for other reasons, to avoid overenrollment and dorm crunches, to control the amount of FA that's expended in the RD round, etc., but most schools have a pretty firm grip on what numbers they'll yield, even if they can't predict an individual student's decision. They don't waitlist hundreds of students for those reasons. </p>
<p>This is probably naive, but is Mini's belief that schools that schools just want to "seem hard to get into" as a key to gaining prestige a widely shared belief? I've heard adcoms say just the opposite: as you become more selective you have to become more careful. If you start consistently rejecting vals and sals, you create a whole high school that says, "no sense applying there."</p>
<p>My point is that these kids may have had good numbers, but did not spend the appropriate amount of time and effort making sure that their applications were really good. Instead, they assumed that WashU or X College of choice was at least a match, and "phoned it in" with their applications. They likely never visited or had an interview (assuming WashU gives interviews--I don't actually know. The point is still valid for other schools). If an applicant doesn't care enough to make an effort with their application, it seems easy to imagine that a college will not be likely to make the effort to accept them--why would they?</p>
<p>At my school at least, my guess would be that these kids thought of WashU as similarly selective to U of I--generally tough for a random applicant to get into, but not for particularly tough for them to get into. Obviously, here at CC we know that this is off the mark, but this is my impression from the kids that I know. </p>
<p>Plus, once you get into the nitty-gritty of each individual application, I could probably come up with the likely reason why they did not get in. Example: the biggest scandal of the whole WashU thing at my school was that our 35 ACT co-Valedictorian was waitlisted. He had decent extras, too--so why didn't he get in? I obviously don't know for sure, but I can give some possibilities: This kid is a stereotypical points-monger for whom school is a competition--not an intellectual experience. He is hardly alone in this, but this is not a particularly attractive quality to colleges. I also know him to be a relatively mediocre writer--another mark against him. His extras ARE decent, but not even above average by CC standards--probably average or a little better in WashU's pool. He's not exactly an arrogant person, but it is imaginable to me that he felt that he was nearly a shoo-in at WashU, and that may have also shown up on his application. I know it sounds like I'm ripping up on this kid, but I really don't have a problem with him as a person, and he did get into another highly selective college, so it's not like all of his hopes and dreams were dashed. I'm just using this as an example of what we all probably already know--admissions decisions usually have a reason behind them. Strong numbers go a long way, but they don't take you all the way to acceptance.</p>
<p>"I've heard adcoms say just the opposite: as you become more selective you have to become more careful. If you start consistently rejecting vals and sals, you create a whole high school that says, "no sense applying there."</p>
<p>Oh, they don't reject them ALL - just enough to make them seem "hard to get". When the small-town high school sal goes away to Dartmouth, people cheer once, and he never comes back. They forget about him. But when the val-shoe-in gets rejected at Yale, folks remember it for years. "Gee, that Yale place must be awful good; why, they even rejected Johnnie!"</p>
<p>Don't disagree with sly_vt. But just to keep the terminology straight:</p>
<p>The standard 25-75% statistic (Common Data Set, USNews, etc.) is for enrolled students -- not for accepted students. The cited 715CR/718M SAT averages for Tufts Class of 2010 (incoming Fall of 2006) are correct -- and are for accepted students. 1520 was the 75% number for accepted students; I think the 1300 25% figure is too low. </p>
<p>For enrolled students for Tufts Class of 2010 (incoming Fall 2006):</p>
<p>25-75% range (Arts & Sciences): 1330-1490
(All, includes Eng.): 1340-1480</p>
<p>Means: Arts & Sciences: 705V, 698M
(All, includes Eng.): 702V, 703M</p>
<p>Mini, Yale doesn't need to "game" the system by rejecting the thousands of Vals who apply. It has to reject most of them, unless it wants to build its campus all the way up to Bridgeport.</p>
<p>I think the other thing people forget is the whole thing about putting together a "class" and that admissions officers serve many different constituencies. What will the faculty have to say if they wind up admitting 80% history majors and no one enrolls in biology?<br>
Applicants have to think of their scores and GPA as what opens the door to consideration for them... THEN they have a chance of getting in... (at big schools that may be enough).
Sometimes it is nothing to do with the individual kid... our guidance counselor told me a story .... for several years in a row about half a dozen kids from our HS were accepted into Rice...and none ever attended. The next year, the same number of kids applied... including one who had always, always dreamed of Rice, who was more qualified than any of the others, above the 75th percentile... and all were rejected. Clearly Rice was fed up with the HS sending applicants who were never going to accept (or that was the theory).</p>
<p>A friend of my son's was NOT accepted into U.x.'s honors program and we were shocked, because my son was... his friend has nearly perfect SAT's, was the first kid from our new-ish very urban MS into the competitive regional magnet program, is much more academically advanced than my kid, had done real research... but he got a bigger merit scholarship. I liken this to someone in admissions thinking he was a great fit for the university, but my son a better fit for the more LAC type program within the University...which would translate, perhaps, into my son getting into the a private LAC and his friend being rejected. </p>
<p>In retrospect, I realize how lucky we were that the mom of an old friend of ours is a college counselor and we had access to her wisdom. She made clear to us that certain schools would be all but impossible for S to get into unless he marketed himself heart and soul...visited, made calls, wrote stunning, special essays... and on the list were Tufts and WUStL. After visiting Tufts and reading about WUStL my son said he wasn't willing to sell himself to them, that he would be happy to attend either one, but only if they wanted him, and he declined to apply. But there are probably thousands of applicants who fell in love with the schools and just submitted their applications with great scores and great hopes...</p>
<p>epiphany-
I completely agree with your point that colleges are obsessed with yield these days. I guess this may be tied to their concern about their USNWR rankings. Hence, the great advantage given to ED applicants and the waitlisting of many students with the best stats. I would also add to the list the trend of going SAT optional, which I believe is encouraged by the USNWR ranking system. Going SAT optional immediately boosts the number of applications and lowers acceptance rates, making a college look much more selective. It also raises a college's average SAT scores (important in the rankings) as those with low scores will no longer submit them. It also raises the prospects of those students with inflated GPAs and those who have done well in less competitive high schools, since these students will boost a college's average GPA (and ranking) without the check that their low SATs used to have on the college's statistics. </p>
<p>Holy Cross, Union, Franklin and Marshall, Knox, Lawrence and Denison (next year) are very recent examples of colleges that have gone completely SAT optional. I know that there are other stated reasons for this trend, but I wonder if the ratings game is also a factor.</p>
<p>If you look up the components that go into the USNWR ranking, you won't find any mention of "yield." As Marathon said, they stopped factoring in how many admitted students accept admission some years ago. There is still a nod to acceptance rate, the number of students admitted out of the number of applicants, but that accounts for only 10 percent of the index for Student Selectivity, which counts for only 15 percent of the ranking score. </p>
<p>What counts a lot more, fully 20 percent, is retention --- how many students come back rather than transfer after freshman year. I think this is what fuels the adcoms's concerns with "why ThisU?" The selection process is about building a community, finding students to satisfy the various departments, schools, and programs, those who will "give back" to the university in ECs, etc. But it's also about finding students who want to be there and will stay. And it's an art, not a science, trying to discern which of the top-notch applicants they are looking at will come and thrive and which will become beset with buyer's remorse, pine for their other choices and transfer out. Colleges look for genuine interest and a "match" between the student and university because not only do too many transfers potentially hurt the college in the rankings, but those admissions-turned-transfers represent spots not given to applicants who would have loved to come to that university and stay all four years. </p>
<p>Silver: I think your "track record" observation is probably right on the money, explaining why sometimes top students from certain high schools get waitlisted at certain colleges, while the lower-by-the-stats kid who makes a good case for fit for him/herself can get the nod.</p>
<p>I completely understand (& agree with) posts 20 ff. that similarly reference quality of application. Of course that can apply to most colleges. I'll buy that effort put into the app. is a major factor in selection -- & I've advocated the same. However, I'm a little concerned with the visit-us-or-else mentality, if there is one. Supposing you have a widely ranging geography in mind, because a certain type of location is desired (not the particular global position), and you have not the funds to go trotting all over the country like a jetsetter. I wonder if that means (as with ED), that you're out of luck if you're out of disposable funds.</p>
<p>FWIW, my olderD got accepted to an extremely selective U that she never visited, & I've heard likewise from others.</p>
<p>So....for the really "selective" (percentage-wise) schools, it's o.k. that you not visit. For the next one or 2 levels down, you're history if you don't visit. Hmmm.</p>
<p>I think I partially cross-posted with jazzymom. So they're concerned with admitting potentially bored transferees, too. I wonder how easy it is, though, to transfer from a safety to a true match. If the candidate is particularly well qualified, that match school will itself probably have an excellent retention rate, and not a whole heck of a lot of transfer spots. (Publics are different.)</p>
<p>
[quote]
What counts a lot more, fully 20 percent, is retention --- how many students come back rather than transfer after freshman year.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Jazzymom, while you are right that 20% of the US News formula is allocated to retention, freshman retention is worth only 20% of the retention score. A school's six-year graduation rate accounts for the lion's share -- 80% -- of the retention score. From the US News explanation of how it formulates rankings: "This measure [retention] has two components: six-year graduation rate (80 percent of the retention score) and freshman retention rate (20 percent). The graduation rate indicates the average proportion of a graduating class who earn a degree in six years or less; we consider freshman classes that started from 1996 through 1999. Freshman retention indicates the average proportion of freshmen entering from 2001 through 2004 who returned the following fall." <a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/about/07rank_brief.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/about/07rank_brief.php</a></p>
<p>I'm beginning to wonder if a new definition of "safety" is in order. Until recently, I think the common wisdom has been that "over (the median) qualification" was a good thing, when it came to selecting a safety. I wonder.</p>
<p>It seems that really the only "safety" is one of your in-State publics for which the determinants are only or mainly numbers, and the U has less wiggle-room for rejections. Even then, I hear that neither UVA nor William & Mary are considered safeties by those residents with really fine stats, and that for UVA at least, something <em>appears</em> to go on that resembles in-state regional quotas. Don't want to start a whole argument about another controversy. It's just that I feel for families trying to plan -- not just ourselves. It reinforces the need, I guess, to apply to many levels of schools, despite the published acceptance numbers, ranges of scores, and the like, due to the perceptions of colleges, not just the qualifications & efforts of the student.</p>
<p>I guess you have to get soothsayer-ish about whether the <em>college</em> will consider the <em>student</em> a safety, not just the other way around.</p>
<p>Although USNWR claims that yield is no longer a factor, it is implicitly part of the magazine's student selectivity measure. The higher the yield a college has, the lower its acceptance rate becomes. The lower the acceptance rate, the higher the selectivity score. Although the acceptance rate is a relatively small part of the selectivity score (10%), SAT optionality improves that part of the score, boosts the reported average SAT score (which is 50% of the selectivity score) and boosts the % of high GPA students accepted by enabling colleges to ignore the low SATs of some high GPA students (which is 40% of the selectivity score.) Added together, going SAT optional has the effect of boosting the entire student selectivity score, which accounts for 15% of ranking.</p>
<p>Well, just a note about the whole visiting thing, epiphany: I was saying that with the unhappy WashU waitlistees at my school in mind. Coming from a reasonably well-off town in the Chicago suburbs, it may seem to be a bit of a snub not to make the trip to St. Louis. True, not everyone who lives in Chicago could get out to St. Louis, but it's hardly a cross country trip. </p>
<p>I was really just using that as part of a larger point that these kids likely hadn't done anything, especially crafting excellent applications, to show the people at WashU that they were serious about wanting to go there. </p>
<p>I think that safety schools still exist. We here at CC tend to have a very narrow focus, but in reality I think that there are still plenty of schools which pretty much accept any applicant who qualifies for admission, including most state schools. I think the kids who really have a tough time finding safeties are those in competitive HS's who aren't in the top 10% of their HS in states where that is automatic admission (or might as well be a prerequisite for admission). Those kids might have to go lower down on the selectivity scale then they might like to find a safety, but they could certainly still find one.</p>
<p>epiph-- on safeties, I always defined safeties a bit more conservatively...not above median, but above 75th percentile. Put in scattergram context, it would be gpa & sats WELL within the upper-right-hand green-dot zone, with NO nearby rejects or waitlists. That's why super selective schools like Wash U could never be safeties by my definition...there are always a bunch of waitlists sprinkled in all the way up to max GPA & max sats, no free & clear green accept zone.</p>
<p>I agree that the term "safety" should be removed from the vocabulary unless one is talking about schools that accept purely on scores or are open admission or take almost all applicants. Our college counseler divided all the schools into 3 categories and called the lowest ones "likelies" and made it very clear that there should my son should put schools on his list, even in the "lowest" category only if he would seriously consider going to them and that he had to understand that on any given day any particular student could be rejected no matter how good an applicant, although she could be more specific about the different schools. We also, from the beginning, talked about what we would do if he got rejected from all of them -- as unlikely as that was -- just in case, and we searched for at least one rolling admission school and one early action school that met his criteria for him to apply to so that we could cross of that possibility early on. </p>
<p>The problem for kids who are qualified for really competitive schools, say with 1500+ scores, high GPA's with challenging courses, EC's and lovely personalities is that there are so many of them! And, just by luck of the draw, they could be rejected from a bunch of schools they like... and they might not like the schools others consider "safeties" for them. In that case, they should be smart enough to understand the dynamics of this process and have an alternative plan (so easy to say, so hard to accept and do in real life...)
I suspect this will become more common in the future...</p>
<p>My D applied to a UC campus (no, not Cal or UCLA) as a "safety" since she was a given "in" with her stats. She really had no desire to attend this particular school, so it was pretty much a waste of her time (and my $) to apply. Yet, her public HS seems to take it as granted that these kids attend the UC, and that's the be all and end all. Few in our town have heard of any options (other than State, JuCo, etc).</p>
<p>I'm not disrespecting the UC, since I am a graduate of one. I just know that it isn't the best option for every individual high-achieving California HS senior. In our little neighborhood, if the HS can say they sent x% of kids to the UC, then that's it. Doesn't matter if it's the best choice or not. It's just a percentage.</p>
<p>I'm thinking that UVA and W&M are basically the equivalent to VA what Cal/UCLA is here. Top notch public schools, hard to get into, etc. Funny thing is, there are probably a lot of kids in VA wanting to attend the UC just because it's in CA.....while not many kids in CA (at least that I know of) would consider attending a VA public school. I would personally be <em>stoked</em> if either of my kids considered UVA or W&M..... and I don't think there's anything in CA that is even close to W&M with regards to size, public, etc. I've argued with many an East coaster (VA born) that W&M is a public as opposed to a private. No one actually thinks W&M could possibly be a public school.</p>
<p>How can UCLA have 50k applicants???? Is it just because everyone in the World (and that's what I'm attributing it to) has heard of it???</p>
<p>silversenior,
While I <em>do</em> like the term "safety" -- only because it tends to hammer home to some students that a "sure" (or nearly sure) acceptance should be a part of the conscious strategy from early on, I generally agree with your comments. (More on college counselors and their annoying non-committal attitudes later.) Some students really need to be talked to in concrete terms, and if the most concrete you can get is "likely," they can rationalize away a good part of their college lists as "likely" -- from State U to some LAC's. I mean, if you're really going to search for something you can honestly call a "safety," you may have to work harder at finding one you also can envision being in for 4 years, than if you toss the grey-area "likely" around.</p>
<p>But here's the rub: When the selectivity, ranking, and yield games are played too much by colleges, it is a negative for them as well as for students. Others have mentioned the diminishing returns aspect -- the perception that the high rate of rejection, or the high level of unpredictability may not be worth the effort of application. That plays into the decisions of those who believe they need to apply to many schools, for a number of reasons. And that may hurt the college by denying them some excellent candidates; no, there won't be seats going wanting; it won't make a quantitative difference, but could make a qualitative one.</p>
<p>The above especially applies to applicants who have more complicated aspects to their apps, such as portfolios & auditions, as well as to those applicants who are required to, or wish to, visit. There's a limit to how much people are willing to play mind games on top of that, -- not knowing whether a college is so focused on yield that it will consider them "overqualified" or "under-interested" by quantifying the number of visits & phone calls made.</p>