<p>You do understand the difference between overall yield (which is the number the schools focus on) and RD yield (which is my favorite measure of selectivity)?</p>
<p>Smith's yield rate, for example, may be 42%, but its RD yield would be much lower (how much lower, I'd have to calculate.)</p>
<p>Neither the yield rate nor any other admissions stat at Harvard includes data relating to the extension school.</p>
<p>Your claim that "a majority of students" at Ivies "can eliminate finances fron admissions considereation" is utter nonsense.</p>
<p>Smith's RD yield would not be much lower, as they take a very small fraction of the class ED - as your numbers above show (unlike, for example, Dartmouth and Princeton.)</p>
<p>Since at most if not all of the Ivies, families are paying full freight, there is rarely a question about "whether" they can attend, just "if they should" (i.e. cost/benefit analysis). Cost-benefit analysis doesn't come into play for large numbers of American families. I don't see much nonsense in that, as it changes the dynamics of student decisionmaking quite radically.</p>
<p>(And yes, the Pell Grant given by Harvard to the Journal of Black Studies included the extension school; Tom Mortenson published the actual Pell Grant rates for undergraduates, as he has done regularly since 1994.)</p>
<p>Smith's enrolled class is 635. With 156 ED students in the class they filled almost 25% of their class ED. That is not a small fraction. However, it is smaller than some other schools, i.e. Princeton, 50%, Brown 35%, Amherst 31%, etc.</p>
<p>On your perception that most of the students at Harvard are paing full freight makes my point about ED. The Ivy league schools are actually quite generous with financial aid, if you can get in. Amongst those who are most concerned about finances ED is viewed as too undefined financially to take that risk . . . thus creating perception like the one you just stated.</p>
<p>Here is the information on Harvard from US News:</p>
<p>Need-based aid
Students who applied for financial aid 62%
Those determined to have financial need 51%
Students whose need was fully met (excluding PLUS or other private loans) 100%
Avg. financial aid package
(% awarded aid) $27,110 (51%)
Avg. need-based scholarships or grants
(% awarded aid) $25,376 (51%)</p>
<p>Since only 16% of undergraduates come from families making less than $60K a years a significant chunk of that aid must be merit money masquerading as need aid. Without seeing those numbers disggregated they are not very meaningful. How needy were their recruited atheletes? How much was token aid? The Harvard name and image may be the franchise that drives the entire Ivy league but it is not totally immune to competitive pressures particularly in niche segments. And it has the wherewithal to go after what it wants.</p>
<p>Harvard has about the same percentage of kids qualifying for need-based aid. They have a smaller percentage of Pell Grant kids, generallly below $40k. But, I would be be surprised if the breakdowns are all that dissimilar.</p>
<p>The key term is '100% of financial need'. As determined by whom? The term is pretty squishy from school to school. Are they using the largest EFC between the FAFSA and CSS Profile or the lowest? Do they factor in private school tuition for other students in the family that are not yet in college? This varies from school to school. 90% need at one school is 100% need at another. </p>
<p>However, the equation is a bit more transparent at some schools. For example, Princeton and Williams provide financial aid calculators that I have read are pretty close to what the student receives.</p>
<p>So on the one hand are the measures which increase yield, ED, ED2, "Tufts Syndrome," early write programs, etc.: on the other the increases in applications per person, owing to the common app. and other factors, which inevitably decreases yield. Do they offset each other equally, do we think?</p>
<p>The answer to your question is that .... it depends.</p>
<p>There is a pretty well-engrained pecking order among the elites, that remains relatively static as app numbers fluctuate, for example, due to procedural changes.</p>
<p>As one school makes a move to gain a temporary advantage (increase the fraction of the class filled ED, adopt the common app, sending out hundreds of "likely letters", increasing need-based aid) the other schools try hard to match, within the limits of theiur ability to do so, or to adopt some countervailing strategy.</p>
<p>Despite having being discussed ad nauseam on CC, I still do not understand why the yields or admissions statistics at women's college have to be viewed THAT differently. We also have had many discussions about the differences in financial aid between say Mount Holyoke and Harvard, and the impact of Pell grants. </p>
<p>As I have pointed out several times before, the financial aid at Harvard is vastly superior to the packages offered west of Boston. The relatively high yield at the women only schools has less to do with a superior financial aid but much more with the more limited choices between successful applications. To be blunt, I do not buy -for a second- that any great number of students had to forego an admission at Harvard to attend one of the Seven sisters for financial reasons. If there were such cases, they must be glorious exceptions. Further, Pell grantees should flock to Harvard -and a few others- and take advantage of the new rules. The biggest issue is that nobody can offer a finaid package to a "non-accepted" student.</p>
<p>Regarding the ED admission, the issue is not so much that Smith admitted 156 students under ED, but WHY there were only 192 applications, and this despite a stratospheric admit rate of 81%. As far as overall applications, one should also look at the reasons why the applications have hardly budged in the past ten years. The increase of 2005 simply provided an offset for prior years decreases. </p>
<p>None of this discussion diminishes in any way the wonderful value that Smith provides to its students. The reports of parents and students have been simply amazing. But, why ... why the insistence of trying to demonstrate something that does contradict verifiable facts. The admission statistics at women colleges are lower and they invariably show that the admitted pool is comparatively weaker than at similarly recognized schools. How many times do we have to acknowledge that excellence in education goes well beyond mere selectivity numbers? However, developing a series of excuses and mitigating factors does NOT make the school more selective. Nothing will change the fact that more than 80% of students who apply ED to Smith - and only a slightly lower number at Wellesley- DO get accepted. In today's ultra competitive landscape, those numbers represent a true anachronism ...and a great opportunity. </p>
<p>The numbers are what they are. Be proud of the school for what it IS, and cherish the differences from others.</p>
<p>Many schools, to one degree or another, are fighting the same battle.</p>
<p>This is a facinating insider discussion by the Faculty Senate about the relatively grim admissions picture at Providence College (for the Class of 2006) and the outlook for the future. (Admit rates, yield rates, cross-admit rates, early admit programs, etc etc. are all part of the picture. )</p>
<p>Scroll down to: "Admissions Report by Chris Lydon, Dean of Enrollment Management"</p>
<p>It was absolutely fascinating being a "fly on the wall" of this school's admissions recap and analysis. And pleasing to know that the school is taking a long, very hard look, not only at the mechanics of the process, but at the more important issues that give a school its reputation</p>
<p>Beyond specific interest in Providence College, there is every reason to believe that some version of this discussion takes place at EVERY college - elite or not - EVERY year.</p>
<p>What is unusual is that we are given this glimpse into what is usually the most sensitive of areas.</p>
<p>Makes you wonder how the same discussion might go at Stanford, Emory, Rice, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee .... or anyplace. Everybody is constantly worried about competitive pressures and how to respond.</p>
<p>How can Providence complain about reduced yield at the same time they are crowing about higher SATs? If they want to increase yield, all they have to do is go back to accepting kids for whom PC is a "reach" not a safety. The quality of the applicant pool hasn't changed; the colleges have been lulled by the increase in applications to safety schools. Of course, if students are afraid of getting into their "match" schools, they will apply to more safeties. If a college, like PC, then accepts only the higher SAT scores from their applicant pool, their yield will decline because these higher SAT kids had no desire to attend PC in the first place.</p>
<p>I've suspected all along that the perceived competitiveness in college admissions is largely an illusion. The kids going to these colleges, PC included, aren't "better" than before. They are the same kids. The higher median SAT scores largely represent stats that are bought and paid for with growing merit-aid discounts and not a reflection of true underlying increases in attractiveness of these schools. Fundamentally, the same kids are going to the same schools as they always have. But, both the kids and the colleges are operating under the false assumption that they are all "better" or "more selective" than before. The quality hasn't improved; only the number of scattershot, ill-targeted apps has increased.</p>
<p>This is true even at the top of the food chain. Harvard has always gotten the best students. That hasn't changed. The only thing that has changed is a huge increase in the number of "no-prayer" applications. A 9% acceptance rate looks more selective than a 15% acceptance rate (or whatever it used to be), but it's really not if the same kids are getting in. The only change is the increasing number of people paying their $60 for the privledge of a Harvard rejection letter. Harvard could charge double for a waitlist letter and they'd have plenty of takers!</p>
<p>What may have changed for a place like PC is a reduction in traditional parachocial self-selection factors in the selection process (for PC: regional New England, Roman Catholic, Irish, etc.) that drove admissions at virtually every college in America. To some extent these regional/cultural motivations have been replaced by a frightening emphasis on magazine rankings, name-brand "prestige", and a "voc-tech school" view of the college to career placement. Literally, kids increasingly view colleges as they would an auto-mechanics school, where you learn to fix and transmission and have an automatic job at the local Ford dealer following graduation.</p>
<p>What? If a college, such as Providence, is trying to enroll higher SAT kids than before, but not getting them to attend at the same rate as the lower SAT kids they used to accept, isn't the problem pretty easy to understand? Do you not think that PC's yield would increase instantly if they dropped the median SATs of the accepted class by 50 or 100 points?</p>