Yield Rate

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
81

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<p>Sigh. If we are saying the same thing, why do you keep arguing and using the term “backing out.” All I know is that I have clearly linked to the Common Application site and pasted the exact words about REJECTING the offer of admission and … moving out. </p>

<p>In a previous post, I have suggested to read the numerous discussions about students accepting and rejecting the ED offer. Over the ten years I have been here, those discussions have veered from the process as explained by Columbia (we only release to a lower ranked school) to the complete option by the APPLICANT to NOT ACCEPT the offer. </p>

<p>Pretending that refusing that offer in December or January is an ordeal is entirely false. Are we really saying the same thing?</p>

82

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<p>What do you think might happen if all schools decided to adopt the EA model? And, why stop there … why not force every school to have a single admission round? </p>

<p>Why do you think that Harvard, after flipping choices a couple of time, decided to abandon its early admissions only to revert to it later. Same story for Princeton. </p>

<p>Before answering, take a few seconds to think through the process, and perhaps evaluate the process at MIT. Is there anything strikingly different in the EA at MIT? What if every highly selective school adopted this model?</p>

<p>And, lastly, what happens when the changes level the playing field entirely? Could it be just a universal RD with the same pitfalls? </p>

<p>Who would the victors be if admissions only had one class of admissions?</p>

83

<p>“Who would the victors be if admissions only had one class of admissions?”</p>

<p>Answer: the applicants.</p>

84

<p>Well, then start advocating for the abolition of EA and its restrictive cousins! And then turn your attention to athletic recruits, developmental admits, likely letters recipients, and a number of scholarships a la USC that are a different form or early admission.</p>

85

<p>“Well, then start advocating for the abolition of EA and its restrictive cousins! And then turn your attention to athletic recruits, developmental admits, likely letters recipients, and a number of scholarships a la USC that are a different form or early admission.”</p>

<p>Exactly - until we get to the point of a more truly meritocratic admissions process, there are only gradations of scummy in this process. (Read: EA is scummy, but not as scummy as SCEA or ED; developmental admits and legacy preference is scummy, but some schools are scummier than others with this, etc.)</p>

86

<p>I actually disagree that EA is scummy. On the one hand, EA does force kids to apply earlier, but it provides them with real information about their position in the market at a time when they can still make course-corrections if it turns out they were lost and didn’t know it. That’s a huge benefit. It’s a benefit to colleges, too, to do systematic reading of a pool of applications early enough to get a sense of what their overall pool may look like.</p>

<p>People will argue that EA favors the sophisticated and well-prepared, but there isn’t much in life that doesn’t favor the sophisticated and well-prepared, and I don’t quite understand how having everyone in the same round somehow reduces that effect. The argument holds no water at all unless the EA admission rate truly reflects an advantage over RD. As MIT’s example shows, that certainly doesn’t have to be the case. And if you correct for the other “scummies” that get loaded into the EA numbers (athletes, legacies), the evidence for meaningful advantage is weak.</p>

<p>I don’t think developmental admits or legacy preferences are scummy, either, at least not in moderation. Unhooked students at the colleges that have perfected those arts benefit enormously from the resources and social connections those practices have fostered over the years. George W. Bush was a mediocre student at Yale, but does anyone in his right mind think it was a bad idea to admit him? (I don’t, and I think he was the worst President of the last 100 years, and did irreparable damage to America. I don’t want to turn this thread political, I just mean to show that one can think George Bush is a total loser and still believe the institutional value system that ensured his admission to Yale has worked really well to strengthen the university. And that was to the benefit of thousands and thousands of normal high-achieving kids, a number of whom enhanced their careers enormously by working in his administration, too.)</p>

87

<p>Some perspective you all need to keep in mind is that private universities don’t have no obligation to act in a way in which you, a self-interested bystander, deems to be “fair”. Private schools answer to their board of trustees, investment officers, and faculty to some extent who will have the majority of say in how to shape the future of a university.</p>

<p>I can’t speak for other schools, but I hope Duke never abandons the use of ED. It rewards students who have done intimate research on the school, are familiar with its traditions, and have a legacy with the school oftentimes through their parents that adds to a sense of loyalty towards the institution that the regular decision admits adopt.</p>

<p>I think its partially because of Early Decision that schools like Princeton (historically speaking), Notre Dame, Dartmouth, and Duke have among the most passionate and loyal alumni of all schools. They have a visible contingent of students have dreamed of going to their respective institutions their entire lifetime. And when you’re around 200 kids like that, the disease of “devotion to thy alma mater” spreads to the rest of the student body like wildfire.</p>

<p>You don’t like the “unfair advantage”? Feel free to go to a state school with a more measurably meritocratic admissions philosophy like a Berkeley, Michigan, UT Austin, or heck even your state flagship. Most of them are likely to just as strong in your intended major of study as a lot of the big-name private schools.</p>

88

<p>Private schools answer to their investment officers? That must be special to Duke!</p>

<p>Of course, private schools have no legal obligation to be fair in these respects. However, they do get tax exemptions and (way more importantly) the ability to grant tax deductions to donors, 1,001 other types of public subsidies, and they regularly ask people to give them large amounts of money for nothing. So even at their most self-interested, they devote a lot of attention to making certain they look noble and fair, and they care what other people think about it, too. University trustees and administrators – I happen to know some of those people – think about what’s fair and right quite a bit, sometimes too much. You think Bok and Bowen wrote their book to hide the fact that they didn’t care about any of that?</p>

89

<p>JHS:</p>

<p>Regarding the idea of whether EA (or legacy preference) is scummy, that all goes back to the conception of what a university should be. As you know, for a long time, UChicago’s applicants were evaluated primarily on one criteria: whether a student demonstrated some sort of intellectual promise to excite faculty members. You ask if anyone at Yale thought admitting Bush II was a bad idea. Well, at the time upon reviewing his application, many faculty members were probably fairly negative about Bush’s candidacy. As many would have predicted, he didn’t contribute much to the intellectual fabric of the school when he was there, either.</p>

<p>In a perfect world, universities would perhaps be meritocratic, intellectual entities. Of course, we’re far removed from that world. Consequently, admissions can be viewed as a balancing act where certain practical forces (need for wealthy, powerful alumni to reinforce/elevate the status of a school, need to have a certain portion of the student body be very good at kicking a ball or holding a squash racket, etc.) are weighed against other desires (intellectual promise/merit, serving underprivileged populations, etc.).</p>

<p>The question then becomes, which schools balance these competing goals well? EA, to me, is somewhat scummy (as is the excessive use of legacy preference used about a generation ago), but there are certainly other worse forces out there. I dislike any early policy because I don’t think an applicant should be advantaged for WHEN he/she decides to apply to a university. Now, the advantage for EA (and related restrictions) are drastically less than ED, which, of course, makes it much less of a scummy practice. All of it nowadays tends to make me shake my head with disappointment, though.</p>

90

<p>Maybe it’s my impure roots showing, but it never occurred to me that in a perfect world, universities would be completely meritocratic, intellectual entities. I think they are places where intellect meets vigor and power, and they learn how to get along and how to use one another to go farther. They parse poetry and build bombs. They replicate the civilization and try to improve the stock. </p>

<p>That’s a heck of a job, and of course it happens by fits and starts, with plenty of missteps along the way. But it’s a more valuable job than simply training the monks to run libraries. And, frankly, it’s what our universities are paid to do by the rest of us. I think a purely intellectual endeavor would fail to sustain itself for very long.</p>

91

<p>“Maybe it’s my impure roots showing, but it never occurred to me that in a perfect world, universities would be completely meritocratic, intellectual entities. I think they are places where intellect meets vigor and power, and they learn how to get along and how to use one another to go farther.”</p>

<p>Spoken very much like a Yale graduate, JHS! The definition of “perfect” university, of course, is very much based on the eye of the beholder. As you know, for a long time, UChicago’s college had one and only one goal: to train scholars. This often led to the experience being quite monastic, but there was a significant population of people (led by luminaries such as Allan Bloom) who argued vigorously that it was, indeed, the most perfect university out there. </p>

<p>As you also know, and as we discussed, this model could not sustain itself because of the practicalities of running a major college/research university. The goal, then, becomes balancing the intellect and the power/vigor. For many decades, Yale’s faculty (and certainly Princeton’s) felt the schools favored power much more over intellect, and they decried the lack of intellectualism on campus. The pendulum has shifted there.</p>

<p>Similarly, the pendulum has shifted significantly at UChicago. Power/legacy is given increased weight, and social acumen is seen favorably as well (rather than being mostly irrelevant). Perhaps this is happening because a Yale grad (Nondorf) and someone with significant ties to Harvard (Zimmer) are running the place now. I certainly don’t think these changes are a bad development.</p>

<p>At the same time, I disfavor early policies (certainly ED, EA to a lesser extent) because I think they unduly favor those with wealth/power/connections. It still seems strange to me that applying at a certain time can offer such an advantage. Why should the timing and demonstrable showing of interest be worth so much? (The answer, of course, is that top schools are self-interested entities, but this comes at the cost of applicants and perhaps carries some pedagogical costs as well.)</p>

92

<p>Well, you are taking for granted, with no real evidence, that EA (or ED for that matter) DOES in fact offer an advantage, besides the obvious one of getting a decision in December rather than March. If you accept the proposition that the EA pool is academically stronger on average than the RD pool (which is what people say all the time), and you take the recruited athletes out of the numerator and denominator, it’s not obvious at all that the slightly higher admission rate doesn’t reflect a slightly higher proportion of admissible candidates in the pool.</p>

<p>Now, in the specific cases of Chicago and MIT (and maybe Georgetown), I have my doubts that the EA pool really is stronger than the RD pool. I think those colleges get a fairly high number of RD applications from deferred SCEA applicants at HYPS – applicants who are very strong on paper and reasonably believed they had a legitimate shot at an early acceptance at one of those colleges. That group should be at least as strong as the EA pool, if not a good bit stronger on average. It would be hard to believe that Chicago does not get several thousand of those applications RD. (And further, I suspect that group of applications turns into a large share of the RD acceptances as well.)</p>

<p>The thing is, hardly any applicant has an average chance of admission. If we had perfect knowledge, we would probably be able to sort the applicants into three rough groups: One group with a 90-100% chance (including athletic recruits), one group with a 40-60% chance, and the third with really no chance at all, maybe a lottery ticket’s worth. The first group is small, and it doesn’t matter when they apply, except that most of the athletes have to apply EA. We have no real idea about how the EA and RD pools divide between the other groups, nor if the middle group (the only one that really matters) is in fact advantaged by applying early, and by how much.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, I agree that part of what matters here is student perception. Students think early applications give them an advantage. And the colleges, while consistently mouthing denials of that proposition, do a lot of winking and eyebrow-arching to encourage that line of thinking.</p>

93

<p>JHS, what is your opinion of the process at Questbridge? Do you find it scummy?</p>

94

<p>No, I think Questbridge is a good idea. Obviously the kids have to be willing to take a match, but the terms are favorable enough to make that a fair deal, and they don’t have to go through the match process (many don’t), and still get all the other benefits of Questbridge.</p>

95

<p>JHS,</p>

<p>Surely you’ve read The Early Admissions Game: Joining the Elite? You still think ED does not offer an advantage, or you think things have changed since its publication in December 2004? </p>

<p>I don’t see how anyone could argue with that book’s conclusions, given its methodology and its access to a unique dataset.</p>

96

<p>JHS, the students who do not rank schools in the College Match process, are simply applying RD. The ED/EA commitment is actually stronger than the simple ED process. </p>

<p>NMD, there have been many changes from the days Christopher Avery started working on the ED admissions’ “racket,” and compiled the AFZ data. Some of the changes are related to the program described above (Questbridge) and the full need and no-loans programs at a number of schools. This has brought many students with low or zero EFC to consider the ED round to be their best bet. You might be interested in the more recent work of Avery (some in tandem with Hoxby) about strivers, and the importance of early INFORMATION for disadvantaged students. Other changes that “might” have occurred since AFZ is that the early admissions’ pool have become more competitive than in the early days. But it all depends if you want to accept the talking points of the schools or follow Avery’s original conclusions. </p>

<p>Things have changed, and a lot has changed since the Class of 2008! Just think how much more information is available today in an organized format.</p>

97

<p>xiggi,</p>

<p>An economist would argue that the availability of new information drives markets to equilibrium (such as the 'January effect" in the stock market many years ago). </p>

<p>At the same time, much other evidence shows the continued admissions advantage elite colleges offer certain preferred groups, as well as a long history of colleges saying one thing while they do another. </p>

<p>Put another way, if anyone believes that elite college admissions is meritocratic, I say show me the evidence, because there is much evidence pointing the other way. </p>

<p>Therefore, absent solid data (and decent analysis) I for one would not discount the observed advantage of early admissions. </p>

<p>Hoxby has done interesting work for years. Take a look at some of her work while she was at Harvard, for example. However, I don’t think it fair to overly generalize from results relevant only to small numbers of people.</p>

98

<ol>
<li> The Early Admissions Game: I don’t question an early decision advantage in many contexts, but I think at the top of the food chain it’s much less clear that there’s an advantage. The big issue is that athletic recruits and their numbers get thrown in with “academic” applicants. If you accept 600 students, and 250 of them are athletic recruits, it’s not going to surprise anyone if the average SATs and GPAs for that group are going to be lower than for the RD population with 1,500 students accepted of whom 50 are recruited athletes. And that’s acknowledging that the recruited athletes are held to a fairly high standard of academic achievement before being qualified to apply. (By “recruited athletes” I mean a slightly broader group of all recruited students, including Questbridge, famous musicians, and development cases.)</li>
</ol>

<p>So it’s really hard to separate out the supposed advantage of ED for unhooked academic applicants from the overwhelming advantage of recruitment for recruited applicants. Recruits have an admission rate of close to 100%, and if there are a relatively high percentage of them in a small applicant pool – and most ED pools are pretty small – they are going to distort the pool-wide numbers.</p>

<ol>
<li> Questbridge: I believe a Questbridge student applying RD has very meaningful advantages – both in the actual help they get from Questbridge, but also in the independent qualification function Questbridge performs. A college looking at a Questbridge applicant knows that this kid has already been vetted more thoroughly than the college could, and both his story and his academic abilities are for real. That’s a huge boost.</li>
</ol>

99

<p>JHS, a bit of inside info, not all early College Matched QB applicants are reported in the ED and EA pools. Stanford, as an example, consider them special RD applicants.</p>