Newbie here. I see a lot of discussion around yield. Why are schools so protective of the yield? It seems to me that the higher the yield demonstrates that the admissions staff is doing a good job of matching students who will choose to attend with the school. I was just curious as to why schools are so protective about it. Do schools publish yields? I recall seeing Thacher publishing a high 80 number – which again seems to me that demonstrates that Thacher’s admission staff is admitting kids that they know will choose to attend Thacher… Thanks.
Yes, a higher yield rate (higher perecentage) is a very good thing. Thacher has an excellent yield rate. A higher yield rate is an indication of desirability and as such will be touted by school’s with high yields. The admissions staff puts a lot of effort into building the class they want so, of course, they want those students to chose their school. No one wants to be second choice.
Yep…yield and attrition tell you a lot: accuracy of the admission’s team, happiness of the community etc. Thacher’s yield is 87% and its attrition is 1%. You can feel the effect in the health and happiness of the community. Like @doschicos says, the admissions staff puts a ton of effort into this.
Some schools can push the yield protection to extreme. They’d essentially call everyone up and ask for a verbal commitment before they send out you admission. Nonetheless high yield among non-legacy in particular in most cases is a good indication of a school’s competitive status and more importantly nowadays an indication of how well the school can fund prospective students with generous FA.
They do it for two primary reasons: minimizing work and practicality and marketing stats
Thanks for the replies. It does not seem like all BS publish their yields, but I understand that only those with high numbers will have any incentive to do so. I also think one yield does not fit all because it may be “easier” for Thacher to find 60-70 kids who really want to attend Thacher (or Thacher may be that good :-)), then schools with larger classes (for example, Lawrenceville, Choate, Andover) when you may have quite a few students who apply (and may be accepted) to all of these schools…I guess if your yield is low, in BS world that means you are less selective? I don’t really see the connection personally, but I understand the points raised in this thread.
Pay attention to attrition just as much.
Interestingly the most unpredictable factor affecting yield protection is FA applicants. FP applicants are usually much easier to pin down.
Yield is directly related to admit rate or selectivity because a low yield will require more admits to achieve the expected enrollment. Yield protection’s main benefit is to ensure the school gets their first picks as much as possible, sort of like the first choice for applicants. Then just like applicants would evaluate their chances of getting in their otherwise first choice and decide not to apply, schools can decide not to admit not someone they’d otherwise consider their first pick when they believe the chances of their attending is very low.
It makes sense. FA tends to apply to more schools for perceived lower chance. Schools realize this and more hesitant admitting them for yield protection. It is a vicious cycle.
So it seems keeping in touch and interviews are even more important for FA and they should make a even stronger impression that they really want the school.
Probably a lot more than I vaguely and naively estimated.
Yes. And many schools lock in a portion of their yield but asking students about their first choice. Almost all athletics recruits are asked in some fashion because then you have the double whammy of a coach with egg on his or her face and the effect on the overall admit rate of the school. Legacy is another basket. In a previous application cycle we had one admit and several WL due to the first choice expectation. Many of these folks talk too.
I feel like dd took a half measure. Perhaps she stood confident but didn’t fully express her desire. Could be some Asian culture or just her shyness. It’s a valuable lesson and she won’t make the same mistake again in the future.
@phonecase Yes, some schools’ yield management is harder than others. When there are many competitions in say the radius of 100 miles, applicants potentially targeting the area would have more choices, making a high yield for any school in the area more difficult.
I personally find the obsession with yield rates ridiculous. If schools are going to ask applicants where they are applying during interviews and expect a first choice answer to justify an admit, the yield rate loses all credibility. I believe the point of a yield rate statistic is to measure how attractive a given school is to an accepted applicant not just applicants who have already determined it’s their first choice and how well an admissions office is able to gauge intrest without blatently asking.
As a seperate note partially pertaining to yield rates, I believe schools should be required to publish how many candidates they wait list, not just how many they accept. If a school has a very large wait list, they can boast both a low acceptance rate and a high yield for accepted applicants who have already shown confirmation of interest. If applicants are going to take a risk in being transparent to an AO about what schools the are applying to, they shouldn’t be punished for their honesty by being put on a wait list. The “what other schools are you looking at” question is about as justified as a candidate asking “what are my chances of an admit?” to decide if they should send in an application or not.
(It’s strange that schools go to such lengths to protect their yield rates but I seldomly find any of them published???)
@LaxPrep schools are supposed to publish if they choose to their yield rate only when after WL is closed. Before that it’d only be expected yield
@LaxPrep its really all such a racket…
“Pay attention to attrition just as much.”
If yield rates are scarce, good luck finding attrition data. I agree its important but hard to find or get answered in a clear way.
“FP applicants are usually much easier to pin down.”
In some cases yes, but definitely not all. What makes you say this, @Center? An easy way to ensure an FA kid enrolls is to be very generous with FA. Legacies are definitely not all FP but more legacies will often only apply to the legacy school or at least fewer schools. One could argue that a very well qualified FP candidate would be desirable by many schools. You get the stats without using your FA budget. And as far as athletes, its the athletes we see in cycles such as this one that get in pretty much everywhere. Desirable athletes are probably the hardest to pin down yield wise but schools are will to take the risk for the chance of nabbing them.
I do think Thacher benefits from less competition in its region than the northeastern schools do on top of being a great school.
@LaxPrep – Your comments sums up my thoughts exactly…
If you think yield management is something boarding schools overly focus on, wait until college apps.
“The “what other schools are you looking at” question is about as justified as a candidate asking “what are my chances of an admit?” to decide if they should send in an application or not.”
And that is why I feel its perfectly fine to answer the question as vaguely as the schools will. No need to lie but just through out a few names your are considering followed by “but your school is one of my favorites because…”. You don’t need to provide a whole laundry list.
I was also going to say that the initial admit rate was not the true admit rate either until WL is closed and yield is factored in. So yield and selectivity are related.