<p>There is an inaccurate premise to all of these recent threads about Yale EA: that Yale gives a hoot about improving the “yield” of applicants it accepts who decide to enroll. That is pretty unlikely. The well-known “revealed preference” survey showed that, as between Yale and other competitive colleges, students are significantly more likely to choose Yale than any other college if accepted to both, with the sole exception of Harvard, where 35% of joint acceptees choose Yale. Vs. Princeton or Stanford, the percentage choosing Yale is around 70%. There’s no reason for Yale not to accept an applicant because he or she may be thinking about Princeton or Harvard, because there’s a perfectly good chance that student will wind up at Yale.</p>
<p>Only about 450 acceptees – about 25% – turn Yale down each year.</p>
<p>If, somehow, Yale were to limit its acceptances to students who were committed to attend Yale if accepted, it would be even MORE difficult to be accepted there. Instead of accepting 1800 students, it would only accept 1350. And what would it gain from that? It’s not playing the USNWR ranking game. It would perhaps lose a shot at some really impressive students, students half or more of whom would wind up choosing Yale and being fully committed to it once there. And for what? To accept maybe 300 applicants who would otherwise be on the wait list, and who will doubtless be accepted to fine colleges (including even Harvard or Princeton)? Not worth it.</p>