<p>The "monopoly" is largely unrelated to price, and the primary casualties if a true bidding war breaks out will not be HYPSM but rather elites that are farther down the academic food chain.</p>
<p>Here is an article that lays it all out in convincing fashion:</p>
<p>True, a large part of elite school is selling its student body. However, if the student body becomes weaker either by the desire to meet the expanding social agendas or it becomes weaker by top talent going other places because of merit aid, the luster will fade. I see that most elite schools are increasing the freshman class size. Perhaps, it is because they do not wish to weaken their student body as a whole. Another factor is those big name world famous professor's retiring or being bought out by second tier schools and also their own graduates teaching at many of the second tier and state schools. But, as the article states the inertia will keep it going for quite some time.</p>
<p>In our case, it really was the student body that my son was emphasizing heavily - the learning outside the class rooms. If it was just the class rooms and the hardware and the facilities, our flagship state U would be much better in his field of study.</p>
<p>One can see the signs of the casualities of the bidding war on the lower ivies like Cornell, Dartmouth, Brown and Columbia. If you go to the Duke board, almost every one that has accepted Duke, has turned down one of those lower ivies.</p>
<p>Let me ask you another question. We all have heard of early phone calls or early admits etc. But have you heard of elites asking for some additional information months in advance?</p>
<p>Let me be specific. At three top schools, the schools requested some additional information like we have not received your Official SAT score or 2004 tax records like in late January. The letter also stated that if you do not wish to be considered, please let us know in writing. Son got admitted to 2 of the 3 places that asked for such stuff (1 RD round, 1 Early Admit and third, I strongly suspect that he lost out to weaker diversity candidate from his own school).</p>
<p>There are certainly schools that use various techniques to measure the likelihood that a particular candidate will enroll if admitted, and the father down the "yield rate chain" such schoolsl may be, the more likely it is that this factor may play a role in admissions decisions. This is what "Tufts Syndrome" is all about.</p>
<p>Thus it is entirely possible that willingness to supply certain additional data may be viewed as a measure of "enthusiasm" for the school - much as certain schools track the number of "contacts" received, campus visits made, etc.</p>
<p>Bear in mind that in this day of sophisticated computer analysis, schools try very hard to predict in advance the demographic characteristics of those who accept or reject an offer of admission. They want to know who their "target applicant" is. They have stats for your high school, stats for your SAT median, stats for your ZIP CODE, for chrissakes!</p>
<p>and the father down the "yield rate chain"</p>
<p>yeah. but all of them were top 3 out of top 5 schools.</p>
<p>Big Brother is watching.</p>
<p>What are you saying? "Top 3 out of top 5 schools" he says: does that mean Harvard, Stanford and Yale, or some other grouping?</p>
<p>There is a flaw in only looking at RD yield. Applicants who have considered an ED school as their first choice are factored out.</p>
<p>(and then obiously applicants accepted to an ED school cannot apply to another institution and bring the second institution's yield down.)</p>
<p>Psd...........(there was one extra top in my earlier post)</p>
<p>"psd" .... does that mean Princeton Stanford and Dartmouth?????</p>
<p>No Byerly Duke. Darthmouth has never been in top 5 in recent past.</p>
<p>Or Duke?</p>
<p>LOL @ Byerly's alarm at Dartmouth. :P</p>
<p>As I have said, there is little difference in the yield rate that is attributable to a school's SCEA or ED status. SCEA schools lose a small number of early applicants who choose to go elsewhere, but this is offset by a small number of SCEA applicants who apply RD elsewhere, are admitted, but stick with their oiriginal choice.</p>
<p>In fact, ED schools can be hurt in a way as opposed to SCEA schools because their ED admits cannot bring down the yield rates of opponents.</p>
<p>I am still confused by the code references: are you saying that two of these three asked for additional data, and your son got admitted? I can't quite get your point. Can you be more explicit about what data was requested by who, and when?</p>
<p>You do not convince me. </p>
<p>SCEA schools that lose an average of 10% of their early admits seem, statistically, to suffer a bigger yield "hit" than ED schools who admit a minor fraction of a small number of RD applicants from SCEA schools, at least some of whom may take the ED school up on its offer.</p>
<p>The ED schools don't accept a minor fraction of the SCEA admits. A good chunk of SCEA admits do get into other elite schools.</p>
<p>There is no evidence that this is so. The only evidence I have seen (the size of Harvard's common admit pools with its chief rivals) seems to indicate that it is NOT so.</p>
<p>Harvard's cross admit pool with its chief rivals is small what? Harvard sucks what?</p>
<p>Now you resorted to petty insults. :(</p>
<p>I have trouble believing that there isn't a big hit to ED schools like
Pton in their RD yield from SCEA and EA schools. I would like
to see numbers though. Just from reading the threads I see a lot
of cross admits that were EA or SCEA admits that also applied to a
number of other schools in RD only to turn them all down. I do believe
there is a lot of trophy hunting by competitive academic all stars. I
think it is their right as they worked hard to get these acceptances,
I just don't think it is fair to compare RD yields as a result.</p>