<p>I am new to the whole bs terms and conditions-lol</p>
<p>Could someone explain, or point me to an old thread, that explains what it is, and why it matters to me as a parent of an applicant?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>Yield is like, how many people (who were offered admission) decided to come to that school</p>
<p>for instance: if 5 people were offered admission to exeter and 4 decided to attend, this would result in an 80% yield.
it kind of matters because traditionally, schools with higher yields are more prestigious/desired/better/whatever. it’s just a statistic and it shouldn’t really matter too much to you if you have your heart set on one school…
i hope this made sense :P</p>
<p>yes, thank you for a clear cut explanation.</p>
<p>I guess I find it interesting in how they decide just who they will take, and if their yield plays into this.</p>
<p>I was and still am concerned when the schools ask where else did my d apply. i really don’t think it is their business? How does this question help you to decide on my d. Of course I answered it, because when you sign most applications you saying you are being honest.</p>
<p>In our case 1 week before the deadline we applied at a school -last minute so I didn’t lie.</p>
<p>It’s probably on of the trickiest parts of the process for admissions people, because it requires them to predict what teenagers are going to do. ;)</p>
<p>Schools only have so many beds and so much money for FA. They want to admit the students who they think are most likely to actually come. If a school has traditionally had a yield of say, 50% and they’ve got 200 spaces, they will admit 400 because, in the past, only half would enroll and they’d have the perfect number of students and all is well in the world. In order for a school to go to its waitlist, they have to have FEWER kids say yes to their offer than they had predicted. So, after M10, when you hear a kid say, “Oh, I’m turning down Exeter” it doesn’t mean that a space will be filled from the waitlist.</p>
<p>It can effect applicants in a number of ways. Schools might waitlist or reject an applicant if they think they can’t “yield them” (and these are extreme examples):</p>
<p>1) You have four generations of their family that attended X Academy and they think you will be admitted there and naturally follow the family tradition.</p>
<p>2) You didn’t seem particularly interested, but are otherwise perfectly admissible.</p>
<p>3) They think you are their safety school and that you will get into a “better” school.</p>
<p>4) You are a nationally ranked swimmer and they don’t have a swimming pool.</p>
<p>Number 3 has often been referred to as “The Tufts Effect,” which is somewhat disrespectful to Tufts, I think.</p>
<p>I think yield management comes into play with FA candidates quite a bit. The last thing they want to do is tie up limited funds for a kid that they think may not use it. Sure, they overadmit for FA a little bit too, but I’m fairly certain that the yield rate for FA kids is much higher. I remember reading an interview with the director of FA at L’ville where she mentioned that FA yield was around 80%. That doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room. Of course, I have no idea how flexible FA budgets are. It probably varies by school.</p>
<p>So that’s why it matters to you as a parent. 
Take a look at the master list and you will see some that make you scratch your head a little. A kid might be admitted to three tippy top schools, then be rejected or waitlisted by a 2nd or 3rd tier school. Maybe it was a matter of “fit” and maybe it was a matter of not thinking they could yield them. The only people who really know are the ones who sit around the table.</p>
<p>Neatoburrito,</p>
<p>Thank you so much for the information, it makes a lot of sense to me now.</p>
<p>It gives me some perspective into the waitlist list. I can see why a say 2nd tier school would waitlist or deny a strong student. </p>
<p>We surely picked a “safety” school that I thought would love to have my d being such a strong student, but now I see why they might not outright take her.</p>
<p>Here in NYC, there seems to be an additional aspect to yield ratio. Simply as a matter of pride (or maybe some form of advertising for future students) schools don’t like to be viewed as a “safety school” (akin to what neatoburrito called the “Tufts Effect”). Admissions offices don’t want to report to their headmaster and board of trustees low yield ratios. On the other hand, they don’t want to reject qualified applicants who just might come to their school, even though they are unlikely to. The solution? The ultra-priority wait list. A candidate who is viewed as overqualified for a school will be put on the wait list rather than admitted. Meanwhile, a message will be sent to that candidate, sometimes directly, sometimes through the placement person of the candidates current school, that if the candidate is really interested now that he/she has seen how his/her results have panned out, just let them know promptly. If there’s interest, the proper papers will be shuffled and magically that candidate will be admitted. If there isn’t any interest, the school’s yield ratio hasn’t been damaged.</p>
<p>Even though I knew of the existence of this practice, I was still surprised at how many wait list results there were in my son’s 8th grade class a few weeks ago. Fortunately, we had prepared him for these sorts of wait lists results, so he was able to understand them for what they were.</p>
<p>I wonder if any of the BS do that.</p>
<p>So, you’re son is waiting for next Wednesday to decide where he’s going? I hope his day schools have been understanding. </p>
<p>Best of luck!</p>
<p>
There are many things they take into consideration before not accepting. If you apply to a safety school that is so completely different from the others, maybe it is fit. Maybe your interviews were not as enthusiastic.<br>
In addition, it seems like (at least a couple of years ago) they were more likely to waitlist. That way, if the school was indeed your first choice, you would be on the phone right away. If the student did not get in to the “top” schools, you would be on the phone right away too.<br>
The other thing schools is waitlist for financial aid. I think sometimes they do that to see what the interest of the candidate really is.</p>
<p>It’s all a guessing game for them. Most schools seem to have between 50-60% </p>
<p>The other thing is that when yeild is higher than expected it impacts future years. One school a couple of years ago had a much higher yeild than expected for freshman. The following year, the openings for 10th grade of course, were down dramatically. And, they accepted fewer incoming freshman that year because of the previous year yeild.</p>
<p>Bravo, neato and Linda. Couldn’t have explained it all better myself. :)</p>
<p>Thanks GemmaV! :)</p>
<p>*I wonder if any of the BS do that.</p>
<p>So, you’re son is waiting for next Wednesday to decide where he’s going? I hope his day schools have been understanding. </p>
<p>Best of luck! *</p>
<p>Deadline for responding to NYC independent schools is noon (yes, they really mean NOON) on March 16th. So, there already is overlap.</p>
<p>GemmaV: Glad to see you have a moment to poke your head out from under the folders. You must finally be seeing daylight!</p>
<p>I would imagine, Lvillegrad, that decisions have all been made by now. They’ve got to give the FA office time to tell them how much they’ve spent, so to speak, in case they need to take anyone back.</p>
<p>Yes, daylight has returned, and I am looking forward to revisit days in a few short weeks.</p>
<p>Are there any known cases where, for example, an applicant gets denied by his safety school because they think he will be accepted somewhere else, but all his other schools denied him as well? </p>
<p>I think there must be, and I think it’s horrible because it’s robbing a perfectly capable student from an amazing opportunity!</p>
<p>There must be, but the several cases I know of, the applicant was either waitlisted or waitlisted for FA at the safety school. I think they waitlist rather than decline admission unless they feel the candidate is not a good fit, then it’s not because they think they won’t attend. ???</p>
<p>*Are there any known cases where, for example, an applicant gets denied by his safety school because they think he will be accepted somewhere else, but all his other schools denied him as well? </p>
<p>I think there must be, and I think it’s horrible because it’s robbing a perfectly capable student from an amazing opportunity!*</p>
<p>I’m sure there have been. Although I don’t have any specific knowledge of it, here in NYC I’d think that you might even be able to have that reversed if you are at a K-8 with a good relationship with the “safety school”. A call can be made and if it’s clear that the rejection was clearly a case of “we’ll reject you before you reject us” then maybe something can now be brokered.</p>